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THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 



THE WILD TURKEY 
AND ITS HUNTING 



BY 

EDWARD A. McILHENNY 




Illustrated from Photographs 



GARDEN CITY NEW YORK 

DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 
1914 






Copyright, 1912, 1913, 191k, by 
The Outdoor World Publishing Company 

Copyright, 191^, by 

DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 

All rights reserved, including that of 

translation into foreign languages, 

including the Scandinavian 



SEP 29 1914 






&CI.A379733 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Introduction ix 

CHAPTER 

I. My Early Training with the Turkeys 3 

II. Range, Variation, and Name ... 12 

III. The Turkey Prehistoric 26 

IV. The Turkey Historic 39 

V. Breast Sponge — Shrewdness . . . 104 

VI. Social Relations — Nesting — The 

Young Birds Ill 

VII. Association of Sexes 119 

VIII. Its Enemies and Food 134 

IX. Habits of Association and Roosting . 152 

X. Guns I Have Used on Turkey ... 163 
XI. Learning Turkey Language : Why Does 

the Gobbler Gobble 170 

XII. On Callers and Calling 181 

XIII. Calling Up the Lovelorn Gobbler . . 198 

XIV. The Indifferent Young Gobbler . . 213 
XV. Hunting Turkey with a Dog . . .218 

XVI. The Secret of Cooking the Turkey . 233 

XVH. Camera Hunting for Turkeys ... 238 

V 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

The grandest bird of the American continent. Frontispiece 

FACING PAGE 

Plate I. Figs. 1 to 5. Types: M. antiqua; M. celer. 

Marsh 30 

Plate II. Figs. 6 to 10. Views of the skulls of 

wild turkeys 45 

Plate III. Fig. 11. Left lateral view of the skull 

of an old male wild turkey 60 

Plate IV. Figs. 12 to 16. Views of the cranium 

and skull of the turkey 75 

Plate V. Figs 17 to 19. Views of the skull of 

wild turkeys, and skeleton of the left foot of a 

wild turkey 80 

Plate VI. Figs. 20 to 23. Eggs of wild turkey . 90 
Plate VII. Fig. 24. Nest of a wild turkey in situ 102 
Note the full chest of the gobbler on the left. 

This is the breast sponge 106 

Nest located in thick brush on top of a ridge in 

Louisiana 112 

Hen, wild turkey, and three young . . 116 

The beginning of the strut 124 

The chief of all his enemies is the " genus homo " . 142 

vii 



Vlll LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

An ideal turkey country. They will go a long way 
to roost in trees growing in water 156 

A hermit. It would take an expert turkey hun- 
ter to circumvent this bird 160 

Big woods in Louisiana where the old gobblers 
roam at will. A delightful place in which to camp 174 

Jordan's Turkey Call (cut in text) 183 

I soon saw the old gobbler stealing slowly through 
the brush 190 

"Cluck," "put," "put," there stands a gobbler, 
within twenty paces to the left 202 

Suddenly there was a " Gil-obble-obble-obble," so 
near it made me jump 206 

The soft, gentle quaver of the hen has no effect on 
the ear of the young gobbler 216 



INTRODUCTION 

A LTHOUGH many eminent naturalists and 
l—\ observers have written of the turkey 
**" - from the date of its introduction to 
European civilization to the present time, there 
has been no very satisfactory history of the 
intimate life of this bird, nor has there been a 
satisfactory analysis of either the material from 
which our fossil turkeys are known, or the many 
writings concerning the early history of the bird 
and its introduction to civilization. I have 
attempted in this work to cover the entire 
history of this very interesting and vanishing 
game bird, and believe it will fill a long-felt 
want of hunters and naturalists for a more de- 
tailed description of its life history. 

This work was begun by Chas. L. Jordan and 
would have been completed by him, except for 
his untimely death in 1909. 

Mr. Jordan for more than sixty years was a 



X INTRODUCTION 

careful observer and lover of the wild turkey, 
and for many years the study of this bird oc- 
cupied almost his entire time. I feel safe in 
saying that Mr. Jordan knew more of the ways 
of the wild turkey in the wilds than any man 
who ever lived. No more convincing example 
of his patience and perseverance in his study of 
the bird can be given than the accompanying 
photographs, all of which were taken of the wild 
birds in the big outdoors by Mr. Jordan. 

At the time of Mr. Jordan's death he was in 
his sixty-seventh year and was manager of the 
Morris game preserve of over 10,000 acres, near 
Hammond, La. He had been most successful in 
attracting to this preserve a great abundance of 
game, and was very active in suppressing poach- 
ing and illegal hunting. His activity in this 
cause brought about his death, as he was shot 
in the back by a poacher during the afternoon of 
February 24, 1909, for which Allen Lagrue, 
his murderer, is now serving a life sentence in the 
penitentiary. 

I had known Mr. Jordan for a number of 
years before his death and was much interested 



INTRODUCTION XI 

in his work with the turkey, as I, for j^ears, had 
been carrying on similar studies. After Mr. 
Jordan's death, through the kindness of Mr. 
JohnK. Renaud, I secured his notes, manuscript, 
and photographic plates of the wild turkey, and 
with these, and my knowledge of the bird, I 
have attempted to compile a work I think he 
would have approved. 

Mr. Jordan from time to time wrote articles 
on the wild turkey for sporting magazines, 
among them Shooting and Fishing, and parts 
of his articles are brought into the present pub- 
lication. I have carried out the story of the 
wild turkey as if told by Mr. Jordan, as his full 
notes on the bird enable me to do this. 

I am indebted to Dr. R. W. Shufeldt for his 
chapter on the fossil turkey, the introduction of 
the turkey to civilization, and photographs ac- 
companying his two chapters, written at my 
request especially for this work. E. A. M. 



THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 



CHAPTER I 

MY EARLY TRAINING WITH THE TURKEYS 

MY FATHER was a great all-round 
hunter and pioneer in the state of 
Alabama, once the paradise of hunters. 
He was particularly devoted to deer hunting and 
fox hunting, owning many hounds and horses. 
He knew the ways and haunts of the forest people 
and from him my brothers and I got our early 
training in woodcraft. I was the youngest of three 
sons, all of whom were sportsmen to tbe manner 
born. My brothers and myself were particu- 
larly fond of hunting the wild turkey, and were 
raised and schooled in intimate association with 
this noble bird; the fondness for this sport has 
remained with me through life. I therefore may 
be pardoned when I say that I possess a fair 
knowledge of their language, their habits, their 
likes and dislikes. 

In the great woods surrounding our home 



4 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

there were numbers of wild turkeys, and I can 
well remember my brother Frank's skill in calling 
them. Every spring as the gobbling season ap- 
proached my brothers and myself would construct 
various turkey calls and lose no opportunity 
for practising calling the birds. I can recall, 
too, when but a mere lad, coming down from 
my room in the early morning to the open 
porch, and finding assembled the family and 
servants, including the little darkies and the 
dogs, all in a state of great excitement. I has- 
tened to learn the cause of this and was shown 
with admiration a big gobbler, and as I looked 
at the noble bird, with its long beard and glossy 
plumage, lying on the porch, I felt it was a 
beautiful trophy of the chase. 

"Who killed it?" I asked. "Old Massa, he 
kill 'im," came from the mouths of half a 
dozen excited little darkies. A few days later 
my brothers brought in other turkeys. This 
made me long for the time when I would be 
old enough to hunt this bird, and these happy 
incidents inspired me with ambition to acquire 
proficiency in turkey hunting, and to learn 



MY EARLY TRAINING WITH THE TURKEYS 5 

every method so that I might excel in that 
sport. 

As I grew older, but while still a mere lad, I 
would often steal to the woods in early morning 
on my way to school, and, hiding myself in some 
thick bush, sitting with my book in my lap and a 
rude cane joint or bone of a turkey's wing for a 
call in my hand, I would watch for the turkeys. 
When they appeared I would study every move- 
ment of the birds, note their call, yelp, cluck, 
or gobble, and I gradually learned each sound 
they made had its meaning. I would study 
closely the ways of the hens and their conduct 
toward the young and growing broods; I would 
also note their attention to the old or young gob- 
blers, and the mannerisms of the male birds 
toward the females. All this time I would be 
using my call, attempting to imitate every note 
that the turkeys made, and watching the effect. 
These were my rudimentary and earliest lessons 
in turkey lore and lingo, and what I have often 
called my schooling with the turkeys. 

At this age I had not begun the use of a rifle 
or shotgun on turkeys, although I had killed 



6 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

smaller game, such as squirrels, rabbits, ducks, 
and quail. I was sixteen years of age when I 
began to hunt the wild turkeys. I discovered 
then that although I was able to do good calling 
I had much more to learn to cope successfully 
with the wily ways of this bird. It took years of 
the closest observation and study to acquire the 
knowledge which later made me a successful 
turkey hunter, and I have gained this knowledge 
only after tramping over thousands of miles of 
wild territory, through swamps and hummocks, 
over hills and rugged mountain sides, through 
deep gulches, quagmires, and cane brakes, and 
spending many hours in fallen treetops, behind 
logs or other natural cover, not to be observed, 
but to observe, by day and by night, in rain, 
wind, and storm. I have hunted the wild tur- 
keys on the great prairies and thickets of Texas, 
along the open river bottoms of the Brazos, 
Colorado, Trinity, San Jacinto, Bernardo, as 
well as the rivers, creeks, hills, and valleys of 
Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, and Louisiana. 
With all modesty, I believe I have killed as 
many old gobblers with patriarchal beards as 



MY EARLY TRAINING WITH THE TURKEYS 7 

any man in the world. I do not wish to say this 
boastfully, but present it as illustrative of the 
experience I have had with these birds, and 
particularly with old gobblers, for I have always 
found a special delight in outwitting the wary old 
birds. 

I doubt not many veteran turkey hunters 
have in mind some old gobbler who seemed in- 
vincible; some bird that had puzzled them for 
three or four years without their learning the 
tricks of the cunning fellow. Perhaps in these 
pages there may be found some information 
which will enable even the old hunter to better 
circumvent the bird. I am aware that there 
are times when the keenest sportsmen will be 
outwitted, often when success seems assured. 

How well I know this. Many times I have 
called turkeys to within a few feet of me ; so near 
that I have heard their ''put-put." And they 
would walk away without my getting a shot. 
Often does this occur to the best turkey hunter, 
on account of the game approaching from the 
rear, or other unexpected point, and suddenly 
without warning fly or run away. No one can 



8 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

avoid this, but the sportsman who understands 
turkeys can exercise care and judgment and kill 
his bird, where others unacquainted with the 
bird fail. I believe I can take any man or boy 
who possesses a good eye and fair sense, and in 
one season make a good turkey hunter of him. 
I know of many nefarious tricks by which tur- 
keys could be easily secured, but I shall not tell 
of any method of hunting and capturing turkeys 
but those I consider sportsmanlike. Although 
an ardent turkey hunter, I have too much respect 
for this glorious bird to see it killed in any but 
an honorable way. The turkey's fate is hard 
enough as it is. The work of destruction goes 
on from year to year, and the birds are being 
greatly reduced in numbers in many localities. 
The extinction of them in some states has 
already been accomplished, and in others it is 
only a matter of time; but there are many 
localities in the South and West, especially in 
the Gulf-bordering states, where they are still 
plentiful, and with any sort of protection will 
remain so. Some of these localities are so 
situated that they will for generations remain 



MY EARLY TRAINING WITH THE TURKEYS 9 

primeval forests, giving ample shelter and food 
to the turkey. 

A novice might think it an easy matter to 
find turkeys after seeing their tracks along the 
banks of streams or roads, or in the open field, 
where they lingered the day before. But these 
birds are not likely to be in the same place the 
following day; they will probably be some miles 
away on a leafy ridge, scratching up the dry 
leaves and mould in quest of insects and acorns, 
or in some cornfield gleaning the scattered grain ; 
or perhaps they might be lingering on the banks 
of some small stream in a dense swamp, gather- 
ing snails or small Crustacea and water-loving 
insects. 

To be successful in turkey hunting you must 
learn to rise early in the morning, ere there is a 
suspicion of daylight. At such a time the air is 
chilly, perhaps it looks like rain, and on awaken- 
ing you are likely to yawn, stretch, and look at 
the time. Unless you possess the ardor of a 
sportsman it is not pleasant to rise from a com- 
fortable bed at this hour and go forth into the 
chill morning air that threatens to freeze the 



10 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

marrow in your bones. But it is essential that 
you rise before light, and if you are a born tur- 
key hunter you will soon forget the discomforts. 
It has been my custom, when intending to go 
turkey hunting, never to hesitate a moment, but, 
on awakening in the morning, bound out of bed 
at once and dress as soon as possible. It has 
also been my custom to calculate the distance 
I am to go, so as to reach the turkey range by the 
time or a little before day breaks. I have fre- 
quently risen at one or two o'clock in the morn- 
ing and ridden twelve miles or more before day- 
break for the chance to kill an old gobbler. 

Early morning from the break of day until 
nine o'clock is the very best time during the 
whole day to get turkeys ; but the half hour after 
daybreak is really worth all the rest of the day; 
this is the time when everything chimes with the 
new-born day; all life is on the move; diurnal 
tribes awakening from night's repose are coining 
into action, while nocturnal creatures are seeking 
their retreats. Hence at this hour there is a 
conglomeration of animal life and a babel of 
mingled sounds not heard at any other time of 



MY EARLY TRAINING WITH THE TURKEYS 11 

day. This is the time to be in the depths of the 
forest in quest of the wild turkey, and one 
should be near their roosting place if possible, 
quietly listening and watching every sound and 
motion. If in the autumn or winter you are 
near such a place, you are likely to hear, as day 
breaks, the awakening cluck at long intervals; 
then will follow the long, gentle, quavering call 
or yelp of the mother hen, arousing her sleeping 
brood and making known to them that the time 
has arrived for leaving their roosts. If in the 
early spring, you will listen for the salutation of 
the old gobbler. 



CHAPTER II 

RANGE, VARIATION, AND NAME 

WHEN America was discovered the wild 
turkey inhabited the wooded portion of 
the entire country, from the southern 
provinces of Canada and southern Maine, south 
to southern Mexico, and from Arizona, Kansas, 
and Nebraska, east to the Atlantic Ocean and 
the Gulf of Mexico. As the turkey is not a 
migratory bird in the sense that migration is 
usually interpreted, and while the range of the 
species is one of great extent, as might be expected, 
owing to the operation of the usual causes, a 
number of subspecies have resulted. At the 
present time, ornithologists recognize four of 
these as occurring within the limits of the United 
States, as set forth in Chapter IV beyond. 

In countries thickly settled, as in the one 
where I now write, there is a great variety of wild 
turkeys scattered about in the woods of the 

12 



RANGE, VARIATION, AND NAME 13 

small creeks and hills. Many hybrid wild tur- 
keys are killed here every year. The cause of this 
is: every old gobbler that dares to open its mouth 
to gobble in the spring is within the hearing of 
farmers, negroes, and others, and is a marked 
bird. It is given no rest until it is killed; hence 
there are few or no wild turkeys to take care of 
the hens, which then visit the domestic gobbler 
about the farmyards. Hence this crossing with 
the wild one is responsible for a great variety of 
plumages. 

I once saw a flock of hybrids while hunting 
squirrels in Pelahatchie swamp, Mississippi, as 
I sat at the root of a tree eating lunch, about one 
o'clock, with gun across my lap, as I never wish 
to be caught out of reach of my gun. Suddenly 
I heard a noise in the leaves, and on looking in 
that direction I saw a considerable flock of 
turkeys coming directly toward me in a lively 
manner, eagerly searching for food. The mo- 
ment these birds came in sight I saw they had 
white tips to their tails, but they had the form 
and action of the wild turkey, and it at once 
occurred to me that they were a lot of mixed 



14 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

breeds, half wild, half tame, with the freedom of 
the former. I noticed also among them one 
that was nearly white and one old gobbler that 
was a pure wild turkey; but it was too far off 
to shoot him. Dropping the lunch and grasp- 
ing the gun was but the work of a second; then 
the birds came round the end of the log and 
began scratching under a beech tree for nuts. 
Seeing two gobblers put their heads together 
at about forty yards from me, I fired, killing 
both. The flock flew and ran in all directions. 
One hen passed within twenty paces of me and 
I killed it with the second barrel. A closer 
examination of the dead birds convinced me 
that there had been a cross between the wild 
and the tame turkeys. The skin on their necks 
and heads was as yellow as an orange, or more 
of a buckskin, buff color, while the caruncles on 
the neck were tinged with vermilion, giving them 
a most peculiar appearance; all three of those slain 
had this peculiar marking, and there was not a 
shadow of the blue or purple of the wild turkey 
about their heads, while all other points, save the 
white-tipped feathers, indicated the wild blood. 



RANGE, VARIATION, AND NAME 15 

Shortly after the foregoing incident, while a 
party of gentlemen, including my brother, were 
hunting some five miles below the same creek, 
they flushed a flock of wild turkeys, scattering 
them ; one of the party killed four of them that 
evening, two of which (hens) were full-blood 
wild ones. One of the remaining two, a fine 
gobbler, had as red a head as any tame gobbler, 
and the tips of the tail and rump coverts were 
white. The other bird (a hen) was also a half- 
breed. There was no buff on their heads and 
necks, but the purple and blue of the wild blood 
was apparent. 

Early the next morning my brother went to 
the place where the turkeys were scattered the 
previous afternoon, and began to call. Very 
soon he had a reply, and three fine gobblers 
came running to him, when he killed two, one 
with each barrel; now these were full-blood wild 
ones. 

I have notedthat a number of wild turkeys in the 
Brazos bottoms are very different in some respects 
from the turkeys of the piney woods in the east- 
ern section of that state. In Trinity County, 



16 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

Texas, I found the largest breed of wild turkeys 
I have found anywhere, but in the Brazos bot- 
toms the gobblers which I found there in 1876, 
in great abundance, were of a smaller stature, 
but more chunky or bulky. Their gobble was 
hardly like that of a wild turkey, the sound 
resembling the gobble of a turkey under a barrel, 
a hoarse, guttural rumble, quite different in 
tone from the clear, loud, rolling gobble of his 
cousin in the Trinity country. The gobblers of 
the Brazos bottoms were also distinguishable 
by their peculiar beards. In other varieties of 
turkeys three inches or less of the upper end of 
the beard is grayish, while those of the Brazos 
bottoms were more bunchy and black up to the 
skin of the breast. There is a variety of turkeys 
in the San Jacinto region, in the same state, 
which is quite slender, dark in color, and has a 
beard quite thin in brush, but long and pictur- 
esque. His gobble is shrill. This section is a 
low plain, generally wet in the spring, partly tim- 
bered and partly open prairie. It is a great 
place for the turkey. 

Since the days of Audubon it has been proph- 



RANGE, VARIATION, AND NAME 17 

esied that the wild turkey would soon become 
extinct. I am glad to say that the prophecies 
have not been realized up to the present time, 
even with the improved implements of destruc- 
tion and great increase of hunters. There is no 
game that holds its own so well as the wild tur- 
key. This is particularly true in the southern 
Gulf States, where are to be found heavily 
timbered regions, which are suited to the habits 
of this bird. Here shelter is afforded and an 
ample food supply is provided the year round. 
In the states of Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, 
North Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Ar- 
kansas, Missouri, and the Indian Territory the 
wild turkey is still to be found in reasonable 
abundance, and if these states will protect them 
by the right sort of laws, I am of the opinion 
that the birds will increase rapidly, despite the 
encroachment of civilization and the war waged 
upon them by sportsmen. It is not the legiti- 
mate methods of destruction that decimate the 
turkey ranks, as is the case with the quail and 
grouse, but it is the nefarious tricks the laws in 
many states permit, namely, trapping and bait- 



18 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

ing. The latter is by far the most destructive, 
and is practised by those who kill turkeys for the 
market, and frequently by those who want to 
slaughter these birds solely for count. No creat- 
ure, however prolific, can stand such treatment 
long. The quail, though shot in great numbers 
by both sportsmen and market hunters, and an- 
nually destroyed legitimately by the thousands, 
stands it better than the wild turkey, although 
the latter produces and raises almost as many 
young at a time as the quail. 

There are two reasons for this: one is, the 
quail are not baited and shot on the ground ; the 
other reason is that every bobwhite in the spring 
can, and does, use his call, thus bringing to him 
a mate; but the turkey, if he dares to gobble, 
no matter if he is the only turkey within a radius 
of forty miles, has every one who hears him and 
can procure a gun, after him, and they pursue 
him relentlessly until he is killed. Among the 
turkeys the hens raised are greatly in excess of 
the gobblers. This fact seems to have been pro- 
vided for by nature in making the male turkey 
polygamous; but as the male turkey is, during 



RANGE, VARIATION, AND NAME 19 

the spring, a very noisy bird, continually gob- 
bling and strutting to attract his harem, and 
as he is much larger and more conspicuous than 
the hens, it is only natural that he is in more 
danger of being killed. Suppose the proportion 
of gobblers in the beginning of the spring is 
three to fifteen hens, in a certain stretch of 
woods. As soon as the mating season begins, 
these gobblers will make their whereabouts 
known by their noise; result — the gunners are 
after them at once, and the chances are ten to 
one they will all be killed. The hens will then 
have no mate and no young will be produced; 
whereas, if but one gobbler were left, each of our 
supposed fifteen hens would raise an average of 
ten young each, and we would also have 150 
new turkeys in the fall to yield sport and food. 
It has always been my practice to leave at least 
one old gobbler in each locality to assist the 
hens in reproduction.- If every hunter would 
do this the problem of maintaining the turkey 
supply would be greatly solved. 

The greatest of all causes for the decrease of 
wild turkeys lies in the killing of all the old 



20 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

gobblers in the spring. Some say the yearling 
gobblers will answer every purpose. I say they 
will not; they answer no purpose except to grow 
and make gobblers for the next year. The hens 
are all right — you need have no anxiety about 
them; they can take care of themselves; pro- 
vided you leave them a male bird that gobbles, 
they will do the rest. Any suitable community 
can have all the wild turkeys it wants if it will 
obtain a few specimens and turn them into a 
small woodland about the beginning of spring, 
spreading grain of some sort for them daily. 
The turkeys will stay where the food is abundant 
and where there is a little brush in which to retire 
and rest. 

Some hunters, or rather some writers, claim 
that the only time the wild turkey should be 
hunted is in the autumn and winter, and not in 
the spring. I have a different idea altogether, 
and claim that the turkey should not be hunted 
before November, if then, December being 
better. By the first of November the young 
gobbler weighs from seven to nine pounds, the 
hens from four to seven pounds; in December 



RANGE, VARIATION, AND NAME 21 

and January the former weighs twelve pounds 
and the latter nine pounds. There you are. 
But suppose you did not hunt in the spring at all. 
How many old, long-bearded gobblers (the joy 
and delight above every sort of game on earth 
to the turkey hunter) would you bag in a year, 
or a lifetime? Possibly in ten years you would 
get one, unless by the merest accident, as they 
are rarely, if ever, found in company with the 
hens or young gobblers, but go in small bands 
by themselves, and from their exclusive and 
retiring nature it is a rare occasion when one is 
killed except in the gobbling season. 

Take away the delight of the gobbling season 
from the turkey hunter, and the quest of the wild 
turkey would lose its fascination. In so express- 
ing myself, I do not advise that the gobblers 
be persecuted and worried all through the gob- 
bling season, from March to June, but believe 
they could be hunted for a limited time, namely, 
until the hens begin to lay and the gobblers 
to lose their fat — say until the first of April. 
Every old turkey hunter knows where to stop, 
and does it without limitation of law. Old 



22 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

gobblers are in their best condition until about 
the first of April, then they begin to lose flesh 
very rapidly. At this time hunting them should 
be abandoned altogether. 

In my hunting trips after this bird I have 
covered most of the southern states, and have 
been interested to note that all the Indians I 
have met called the turkey "Furkee" or "Fir- 
kee"; the tribes I have hunted with include the 
Choctaws, Chickasaws, Creeks, Seminoles, and 
the Cherokees, who live east of the Mississippi 
River, and the Alabams, Conchattas, and Zunis 
of the west. Whether their name for the bird 
is a corruption of our turkey, or whether our 
word is a corruption of their "Furkee," I am not 
prepared to state. It may be that we get our 
name direct from the aboriginal Indians. All 
of the Indian tribes I have hunted with have 
legends concerning the turkey, and to certain of 
the Aztec tribes it was an object of worship. An 
old Zuni chief once told me a curious legend of 
his people concerning this bird, very similar to 
the story of the flood. It runs: 

Ages ago, before man came to live on the 



RANGE, VARIATION, AND NAME 23 

earth, all birds, beasts, and fishes lived in har- 
mony as one family, speaking the same language, 
and subsisting on sweet herbs and grass that 
grew in abundance all over the earth. Sud- 
denly one day the sun ceased to shine, the sky 
became covered with heavy clouds, and rain 
began to fall. For a long time this continued, 
and neither the sun, moon, nor stars were seen. 
After a while the water got so deep that the 
birds, animals, and fishes had either to swim or 
fly in the air, as there was no land to stand on. 
Those that could not swim or fly were carried 
around on the backs of those that could, and 
this kept up until almost every living thing was 
almost starved. Then all the creatures held 
a meeting, and one from each kind was selected 
to go to heaven and ask the Great Spirit to send 
back the sun, moon, and stars and stop the rain. 
These journeyed a long way and at last found 
a great ladder running into the sky; they climbed 
up this ladder and found at the top a trapdoor 
leading into heaven, and on passing through the 
door, which was open, they saw the dwelling- 
place of man, and before the door were a boy 



24 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

and girl playing, and their playthings were the 
sun, moon, and stars belonging to the earth. As 
soon as the earth creatures saw the sun, moon, 
and stars, they rushed for them and, gathering 
them into a basket, took the children of man 
and hurried back to earth through the trap- 
door. In their hurry to get away from the man 
whom they saw running after them, the trap- 
door was slammed on the tail of the bear, cut- 
ting it off. The blood spattered over the lynx 
and trout, and since that time the bear has had 
no tail, and the lynx and trout are spotted. 
The buffalo fell down and hurt his back and 
has had a hump on it ever since. The sun, 
moon, and stars having been put back in their 
places, the rain stopped at once and the waters 
quickly dried up. On the first appearance of 
land, the turkey, who had been flying around 
all the time, lit, although warned not to do so 
by the other creatures. It at once began to 
sink in the mud, and its tail stuck to the mud so 
tight that it could hardly fly up, and when it 
did get away the end of its tail was covered with 
mud and is stained mud color to this day. The 



RANGE, VARIATION, AND NAME 25 

earth now having become dry and the children 
of man now lords of the earth, each creature was 
obliged to keep out of their way, so the fishes 
took to the waters using their tails to swim away 
from man, the birds took to their wings, and the 
animals took to their legs ; and by these means the 
birds, beasts, and fishes have kept out of man's 
way ever since. 

Before dealing with the wild turkeys as they 
are to-day, it will be well to make a short study 
of their prehistoric and historic standing; this 
has been ably done for me by Dr. R. W. Shufeldt 
of Washington, D. C, who has very kindly 
written for this work the next two chapters 
entitled ''The Turkey Prehistoric," and "The 
Turkey Historic." 



CHAPTER III 

THE TURKEY PREHISTORIC 

PROBABLY no genus of birds in the 
American avifauna has received the 
amount of attention that has been be- 
stowed upon the turkeys. Ever since the coming 
to the New World of the very first explorers, 
who landed in those parts where wild turkeys 
are to be found, there has been no cessation of 
verbal narratives, casual notices, and appear- 
ance of elegant literature relating to the mem- 
bers of this group. We have not far to seek for 
the reason for all this, inasmuch as a wild turkey 
is a very large and unusually handsome bird, 
commanding the attention of any one who 
sees it. Its habits, extraordinary behavior, and 
notes render it still more deserving of considera- 
tion; and to all this must be added the fact that 
wild turkeys are magnificent game birds; the 
hunting of them peculiarly attractive to the 

26 



THE TURKEY PREHISTORIC 27 

sportsman; while, finally, they are easily domes- 
ticated and therefore have a great commercial 
value everywhere. 

The extensive literature on wild and domesti- 
cated turkeys is by no means confined to the Eng- 
lish language, for we meet with many references 
to these fowls, together with accounts and descrip- 
tions of them, distributed through prints and 
publications of various kinds, not only in Latin, 
but in the Scandinavian languages as well as 
in French, German, Spanish, Italian, and doubt- 
less in others of the Old World. Some of these 
accounts appeared as long ago as the early part 
of the sixteenth century, or perhaps even ear- 
lier; for it is known that Grijalva discovered 
Mexico in 1518, and Gomarra and Hernandez, 
whose writings appeared soon afterward, gave, 
among their descriptions of the products of that 
country, not only the wild turkey, but, in the 
case of the latter writer, referred to the wild as 
well as to the domesticated form, making the dis- 
tinction between the two. 

In order, however, to render our history of 
the wild turkeys in America as complete as pos- 



28 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

sible, we must dip into the past many centuries 
prior to the discovery of the New World by 
those early navigators. We must go back to the 
time when it was questionable whether man ex- 
isted upon this continent at all. In other words, 
we must examine and describe the material rep- 
resenting our extinct turkeys handed us by the 
paleontologists, or the fossilized remains of the 
prehistoric ancestors of the family, of which 
we have at hand a few fragments of the greatest 
value. These I shall refer to but briefly for 
several reasons. In the first place, their tech- 
nical descriptions have already appeared in 
several widely known publications, and in the 
second, what I have here to say about them is in 
a popular work, and technical descriptions are 
not altogether in place. Finally, such material as 
we possess is very meagre in amount indeed, and 
such parts of it as would in any way interest the 
general reader can be referred to very briefly. 

The fossil remains of a supposed extinct tur- 
key, described by Marsh 1 as Meleagris altus from 

'Marsh, O. C. Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci., Phila., 1870, p. 11. Also Am. 
Jour. Sci., IV, 1872, 260. In a letter to me under date of April 25, 1912, 
Dr. George F. Eaton of the Museum of Yale University, New Haven, 



THE TURKEY PREHISTORIC 29 

the Post-pliocene of New Jersey, is, from the 
literature and notices on the subject, now 
found to be but a synonym of the Meleagris 
superba of Cope from the Pleistocene of 
New Jersey. At the present writing I have 
before me the type specimen of Meleagris 
alius of Marsh, for which favor I am in- 
debted to Dr. Charles Schuchert of the Pea- 
body Museum of Yale University. My account 
of it will be published in another connection 
later on. 

Some years after Professor Marsh had de- 
scribed this material as representing a species to 
which I have just said he gave the specific name 
of alius, it would appear that I did not fully 
concur in the propriety of doing so, as will be 
seen from a paper I published on the subject 



Conn., writes that "Type of Meleagris altus is in Peabody Museum with 
other types of fossil Meleagris." At the present writing I am not in- 
formed as to what these " other types" are; and I am of the opinion that 
the museum referred to by Doctor Eaton has no fossil meleagrine material 
that has not, up to date, been described. See also Amer. Nat., Vol. 
IV, p. 317. 

Cope, E. D. "Synopsis of Extinct Batrachia, etc." Meleagris 
supcrbus (Trans. Amer. Philos. Soc, N. S. XIV, Pt. 1, 1870,239). A long 
and careful description of M. superbus [superba] will be found here, 
where the species is said to be "established on a nearly perfect right tibia, 
an imperfect left one, a left femur with the condyles broken off, and a 
right coracoid bone, with the distal articular extremity imperfect." 



30 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

about fifteen years ago. 1 This will obviate the 
necessity of saying anything further in regard to 
M. superba. 

So far as rny knowledge carries me, this 
leaves but two other fossil wild turkeys of 
this country, both of which have been de- 
scribed by Professor Marsh and generally 
recognized. These are Meleagris antiqua in 
1871, and Meleagris celer in 1872. My com- 
ments on both of these species will be found 
in the American Naturalist for July, 1897, on 
pages 648, 649. 2 



'Shufejdt, R. W., "On Fossil Bird-Bones Obtained by Expeditions of 
the University of Pennsylvania from the Bone Caves of Tennessee." 
The Amer. Nat., July, 1897, pp. 645-650. Among those bones were 
many belonging to M. g. silvestris. Professor Marsh declined to allow 
me to even see the fossil bones upon which he based the several alleged 
new species of extinct Meleagridae which he had described. 

'Marsh, O. C. [Title on page 120.] Meleagris antiqua. Amer. 
Journ. Sci., ser. 3, II, 1871, 126. From this I extract the following 
description, to wit: — 

Meleagris antiquus, sp. no v. 
A large Gallinaceous Bird, approaching in size the wild Turkey, and 
probably belonging to the same group, was a contemporary of the Oreo- 
don and its associates during the formation of the Miocene lake deposits 
east of the Rocky Mountains. The species is at present represented only 
by a few fragments of the skeleton, but among these is a distal end of a 
right humerus, with the characteristic portions all preserved. The speci- 
men agrees in its main features with the humerus of Meleagris gallopavo 
Linn., the most noticeable points of difference being the absence in the 
fossil species of the broad longitudinal ridge on the inner surface of the 
distal end, opposite the radial condyle, and the abrupt termination of the 
ulnar condyle at its outer, superior border. 



Plate J 




Types: M. antigua; M. celer. Marsh 
Fig. I. Anconal aspect of the distal extremity of the right humerus of "Meleagris 
anliquus" of Marsh. Fig. 2. Palmar aspect of the same specimen as shown in Fig. 1. 
Fig. 3. Anterior aspect of the proximal moiety of the left tarsometatarsus of Meleagris 
celer of Marsh. Fig. 4. Posterior aspect of the same fragment of bone shown in Fig. 3. 
Fig. 5. Outer aspect of the same fragment of bone shown in Figs. 3 and 4. All figures 
natural size. Reproduced from photographs made direct from the specimens by Dr. R. 
W. Shufeldt. 



THE TURKEY PREHISTORIC 31 

It will be noted, then, that Meleagris antique 
of Marsh is practically represented by the imper- 
fect distal extremity of a right humerus; and that 
Meleagris celer of the same paleontologist from 
the Pleistocene of New Jersey is said to be repre- 
sented by the bones enumerated in a foregoing 
footnote. In this connection let it be borne in 
mind that, while I found fossil specimens of 
Meleagris g. silvestris in the bone caves of Ten- 
nessee, I found no remains of fossil turkeys in 
Oregon, from whence some classifiers of fossil 



Measurements. 

Greatest diameter of humerus at distal end . . 12. lines 

Transverse diameter of ulnar condyle . . . . 3.4 

Vertical diameter of same 4 . 

Transverse diameter of radial condyle . . . . 4.25 
The specimens on which this species is based were discovered by Mr. 
G. B. Grinnell of the Yale party, in the Miocene clay deposits of north- 
ern Colorado." 

Ibid. IV, 1872, 261. [Title on p. 256.] "Art XXX. Notice of some 
new Tertiary and Post-Tertiary Birds." From this article by Pro- 
fessor Marsh I extract the following : 

Meleagris celer, sp. no v. 

A much smaller species of the same genus is represented by two tibiae 
and the proximal half of a tarso-metatarsal, which were found together, 
and probably belonged to the same individual. The tibia is slender, and 
has the shaft less flattened from before backward than in the last species 
[M. altus] . The distal half of the shaft has its anterior face more dis- 
tinctly polygonal. From the head of the tibia a sharp ridge descends a 
short distance on the posterior face, where it is met by an external ridge 
of similar length. The tarso-metatarsal has the external ridge of the 
proximal end more prominent, and the posterior tendinal crest more os- 
sified than in the larger species. The remains preserved indicate a bird 
about half the bulk of M . altus. 



32 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

birds state that M. antiqua came (A. O. U. Check- 
Listed, 1910, p. 388 1 ). 

On the 19th of April 1912, I communicated 
by letter with Dr. George F. Eaton, of the 
Museum of Yale University, in regard to the 
fossils described by Marsh of M. antiqua and 

Measurements . 

Length of tibia 183. 

Greatest diameter of proximal end 84. 

Transverse diameter of shaft at middle . . . . 9.6 

Transverse diameter of distal end 16.5 

Antero-posterior diameter of outer condyle ... 10. 

Transverse diameter of proximal end of tarso-metatarsus 19 . 

Antero-posterior diameter 14. 

On page 260 is described Meleagris altus: 

Meleagris alius [Marsh]. Proc. Phila. Acad. 1870, p. 11, and Amer. 
Nat., Vol. IV, p. 317. (M. superbus Cope, Synopsis Extinct Ba- 
trachia etc., p. 239.) 

(Followed by description and the following measurements of the 
fossil bones.) 

Length (approx.) of humerus 159.5 mm 

Greatest diameter proximal end 42. 

Greatest diameter distal end ........ 33. 

Length of coracoid 122. 

Transverse diameter of lower end 37.5 " 

Length of femur 150. 

Transverse diameter of distal end 31 . 

Length of tibia 243. 

Transverse diameter of distal end 18. 

Length of tarso-metatarsus 176. 

Transverse diameter of proximal end .... 23. 

Distance from proximal end to spur . . . . 110. 
(A number of differences as compared with existing species are enumerated) 

'Shufeldt, R. W. A Study of the Fossil Avifauna of the Equus Beds 
of the Oregon Desert. Journ. Acad. Nat. Sci., Phila., ser. 2, IX, 1892, 
pp. 389-425. Pis. XV-XVII. Advance abstracts of this memoir were 
published in The Auk (Vol. VIII, No. 4, October, 1891, pp. 365-368). 
The American Naturalist (Vol. XXV, No. 292, Apr., 1891, pp. 303-306, 
and ibid No. 297, Sept., 1891, pp. 818-821) and elsewhere. Although 
no turkeys were discovered among these fossils, there were bones present 
of extinct grouse. 



THE TURKEY PREHISTORIC 33 

M. celer, with the view of borrowing them for 
examination. Dr. Eaton, with great kindness, 
at once interested himself in the matter, and 
wrote me (April 20, 1912) that "We have a wise 
rule forbidding us to lend type material, but 1 
shall be glad to ask Professor Schuchert to make 
an exception in your favor." In due time 
Prof. Charles Schuchert, then curator of the 
Geological Department of the Peabody Mu- 
seum of Natural History of Yale University, 
wrote me on the subject (May 2, 1912), and 
with marked courtesy granted the request 
made of him by Dr. Eaton, and forwarded me 
the type specimen of Marsh of M. antiqua and 
M . celer by registered mail. They were received 
on the 3rd of May, 1912, and I made negatives 
of the two specimens on the same day. It 
affords me pleasure to thank both Professor 
Schuchert and Dr. Eaton here for the unusual 
privilege I enjoyed, through their assistance, in 
the loan of these specimens; 1 also Dr. James E. 

'Upon examining this material after it came into my hands, I found 
first, in a small tube closed with a cork, the distal end of the right hum- 
erus of some large bird. The cork was marked on the side, "Type," on 
top "Mel. antiquus. G. Ranch. Col. G. B. G. August 6, 1870." The 
specimen is pure white, thoroughly fossilized, and imperfect. The 



31 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

Benedict, Curator of Exhibits of the U. S. Na- 
tional Museum, and Dr. Charles W. Richmond of 
the Divison of Birds of that institution, for their 
kindness in permitting me to examine and make 
notes upon a mounted skeleton of a wild turkey 
(M. g. silvestris) taken by Prof. S. F. Baird at 
Carlisle, Penn., many years ago. Mr. Newton 
P. Scudder, librarian of the National Museum, 
likewise has my sincere thanks for his kindness 
in placing before me the many volumes on the 
history of the turkey I was obliged to consult 
in connection with the preparation of this 
chapter. 

From what has already been set forth above, it 
is clear that Marsh's specimen (for he attached 
but scant importance to the other fragments with 
it), upon which he based " Meleagris antiquus" 
was not taken in Oregon, but in Colorado. 1 

second of the two specimens received is in a small pasteboard box, 
marked on top "Birds. Meleagris, sp. nov. N. J., Meleagrops celer 
(type)." The specimen is the imperfect, proximal moiety of the left 
tarso-metatarsus of a rather large bird. It is thoroughly fossilized, 
earth-brown in color, with the free borders of the proximal end con- 
siderably worn off. On its postero-external aspect, written in ink, are 
the words " M. celer." 

1 In making this statement, I take the words of Dr. Geo. Bird Grin- 
nell as written on the cork of the bottle containing the specimen to be 
correct, and not the locality given elsewhere. (The A. O. U. Check-List 
of North American Birds. Third Edition, 191U, p. 388.) Moreover, the 



THE TURKEY PREHISTORIC 35 

Both of these fossils I have very critically com- 
pared with the corresponding parts of the bones 
represented in each case in the skeleton of an 
adult wild turkey (Meleagris g. silvestris) in the 
collection of mounted bird skeletons in the U. S. 
National Museum. 

Taking everything at my command into con- 
sideration as set forth above, as well as the extent 
of Professor Marsh's knowledge of the osteology 
of existing birds — not heretofore referred to — 
I am of the opinion, that in the case of his Melea- 
gris antiqua, the material upon which it is based 
is altogether too fragmentary to pronounce, 
with anything like certainty, that it ever be- 
longed to a turkey at all. In the first place, it 
is a very imperfect fragment (Plate 1, Figs. 1 
and 2) ; in the second, it does not typically pre- 
sent the "characteristic portions" of that end 
of the humerus in a turkey, as Professor Marsh 
states it does. Thirdly, the distal end of the 
humerus is by no means a safe fragment of the 
skeleton of hardly any bird to judge from. 

specimen is pure white, which is characteristic of the fossils found in 
the White River region of Colorado. This is confirmed by Professor 
Marsh in his article quoted above. 



36 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

Finally, it is questionable whether the genus 
Meleagris existed at all, as such, at the time the 
"Miocene clay deposits of northern Colorado" 
were deposited. 

That this fragment may have belonged to the 
skeleton of some big gallinaceous fowl the size 
of an adult existing Meleagris — and long ago 
extinct — I in no way question ; but that it was 
a true turkey, I very much doubt. 

Still more uncertain is the fragment repre- 
senting Meleagris celer of Marsh. (Plate 1, Figs. 
3-5.) The tibia mentioned I have not seen, 
and of them Professor Marsh states that they 
only "probably belonged to the same indi- 
vidual" (see anted). As to this proximal moiety 
of the tarso-metatarsus, it is essentially dif- 
ferent from the corresponding part of that bone 
in Meleagris g. silvestris. In it the hypotarsus 
is twice grooved, longitudinally; whereas in M. 
g. silvestris there is but a single median groove. 
In the latter bird there is a conspicuous osseous 
ridge extending far down the shaft of the bone, 
it being continued from the internal, thickened 
border of the hypotarsus. This ridge is only 



THE TURKEY PREHISTORIC 37 

indicated on the fossil bone, having either been 
broken off or never existed at all. In any event 
it is not present in the specimen. The general 
fades of the fossil is quite different from that 
part of the tarso-metatarsus in an existing wild 
turkey, and to me it does not seem to have come 
from the skeleton of the pelvic limb of a mele- 
agrine fowl at all. It may have belonged to a 
bird of the galline group, not essentially a tur- 
key; while on the other hand it may have been 
from the skeleton of some large wader, not nec- 
essarily related to either the true herons or storks. 
Some of the herons, for example, (Ardea) have 
"the hypotarsus of the tarso-metatarsus three- 
crested, graduated in size, the outer being the 
smaller; the tendinal grooves pass between 
them." 1 As just stated, the hypotarsus of the 
tarso-metatarsus in Meleagris celer of Marsh is 
three-crested, and the tendinal grooves pass be- 
tween them. In M. g. silvestris this process is 
but two-crested and the median groove passes 
between them. 



1 Shufeldt, R. W. "Osteological Studies of the Subfamily Ardeinse." 
Journ. Comp. Med. and Surg.,Vol. X, No. 4, Phila., October, 1889, pp. 

287-317. 



38 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

The sternum of the turkey, if we have it 
practically complete, is one of the most char- 
acteristic bones of the skeleton; but Professor 
Marsh had no such material to guide him when 
he pronounced upon his fossil turkeys. Had I 
made new species, based on the fragments of 
fossil long bones of all that I have had for exami- 
nation, quite a numerous little extinct avifauna 
would have been created. 

" It isof ten a positive detriment to science, in my 
opinion, to create new species of fossil birds upon 
the distal ends of long bones, and surety no assist- 
ance whatever to those who honestly endeavor to 
gain some idea of the avian species that really 
existed during prehistoric times." 1 

iShufeldt, R. W. Amer. Nat., July, 1897, p. 648. I have had no 
occasion to change my opinion since. 



H 



CHAPTER IV 

THE TURKEY HISTORIC 

AVING disposed of such records as we 
have of the extinct ancestors of the 
American turkeys — the so-to-speak 
meleagrine records — we can now pass to what 
is, comparatively speaking, the modern history 
of these famous birds, although some of this 
history is already several centuries old. 

We have seen in the foregoing chapter that 
all the described fossil species of turkeys have 
been restricted to the genus Meleagris, and this 
is likewise the case with the existing species and 
subspecies. Right here I may say that the 
word Meleagris is Greek as well as Latin, and 
means a guinea-fowl. This is due to the fact 
that when turkeys were first described and 
written about they were, by several authors of 
the early times, strangely mixed up with those 
African forms, and the two were not entirely 

39 



40 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

disentangled for some time, as we shall see 
further on in this chapter. In modern orni- 
thology, however, the generic name of Meleagris 
has been transferred from the guinea-fowls to 
the turkeys. These last, as they are classified 
in "The A. O. U. Check-List of the American 
Ornithologists' Union," which is the latest 
authoritative word upon the subject, stand as 

follows : 

Family Meleagrid^e. Turkeys. 
Genus Meleagris Linnaeus. 
Meleagris Linnaeus, Syst. Nat., ed. 10, 1, 1758, 156. 
Type, by subs, desig., Meleagris gallopavo Linnaeus 
(Gray, 1840). 

Meleagris gallopavo (Linnaeus) . 

Range. — Eastern and south central United States, 
west to Arizona and south to the mountains of Oaxaca. 

a. [Meleagris gallopavo gallopavo. Extralimital.] 

b. Meleagris gallopavo silvestris Vieillot. Wild Tur- 
key [310a]. 

Meleagris silvestris Vieillot Nouv., Diet. d'Hist. Nat., 
IX, 1817,447. 

Range. — Eastern United States from Nebraska, Kan- 
sas, western Oklahoma, and eastern Texas east to central 
Pennsylvania, and south to the Gulf coast; formerly 
north to South Dakota, southern Ontario, and southern 
Maine. 

c. Meleagris gallopavo merriami Nelson. Merriam's 
Turkey [310]. 



THE TURKEY HISTORIC 41 

Meleagris gallopavo merriami Nelson, Auk, XVII, 
April, 1900, 120. 

(47 miles southwest of Winslow, Arizona.) 

Range. — Transition and Upper Sonoran zones in the 
mountains of southern Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, 
western Texas, northern Sonora, and Chihuahua. 

d. Meleagris gallopavo osceola Scott. Florida Tur- 
key [3106]. 

Meleagris gallopavo osceola Scott, Auk, VII, Oct., 
1890, 376. (Tarpon Springs, Florida.) 
Range. — Southern Florida. 

e. Meleagris gallopavo intermedia Sennett. Rio 
Grande Turkey [310c]. 

Meleagris gallopavo intermedia Sennett. Bull. U. S. 
Geol. & Geog. Surv. Terr., V, No. 3, Nov., 1879, 428. 
(Lomita, Texas.) 

Range. — Middle northern Texas south to northeastern 
Coahuila, Nuevo Leon, and Tamaulipas. 

The presenting of the above list here does 
away with giving, in the history of the wild tur- 
keys, any of the very numerous changes that 
have taken place through the ages which led up 
to its adoption. The discussion of these changes, 
as a part of meleagrine history, would make an 
octavo volume of two hundred pages or more. 

It may be said here, however, that the word 
gallopavo is from the Latin, g alius a cock, and 
pavo a peafowl, while the meanings of the several 



7 



42 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

words silvestris, merriami, osceola, and intermedia 
are self-evident and require no definitions. 

Audubon, who gives the breeding range of the 
wild turkey as extending ''from Texas to Mas- 
sachusetts and Vermont" (Vol. V., p. 56), says 
of them in his long account: "I have ascertained 
that some of these valuable birds are still to be 
found in the states of New York, Massachusetts, 
Vermont, and Maine. In the winter of 1832-33, 
I purchased a few fine males in the city of Bos- 
ton"; and further, "At the time when I removed 
to Kentucky, rather more than a fourth of a cen- 
tury ago, turkeys were so abundant that the 
price of one in the market was not equal to that 
of a common barn-fowl now. I have seen them 
offered for the sum of three pence each, the birds 
weighing from ten to twelve pounds. A first- 
rate turkey, weighing from twenty-five to thirty 
pounds avoirdupois, was considered well sold 
when it brought a quarter of a dollar." 1 

From these remarks we may imagine how 
plentiful wild turkeys must have been on the 

'Audubon, J. J. "The Birds of America," Vol. V, pp. 54-55. Even 
in Audubon's time the wild turkeys were being rapidly exterminated. 
Al this time M. g. silvestris does not occur east of central Pennsylvania. 



THE TURKEY HISTORIC 43 

North American continent, when Aristotle wrote 
his work "On Animals," over three hundred 
years before the birth of Christ, upward of 
twenty-three centuries ago! A good many 
changes can take place in the avifauna of a 
country in that time. 

How these big, gallinaceous fowls ever got the 
name of "turkey" has long been a matter of dis- 
pute; and not a few ornithologists and writers 
of note in the 16th and 17th centuries errone- 
ously conceived that the term had something to 
do either with the Turks or their country. But 
this idea has now been entirely abandoned, for it 
has become quite clear that, during the times 
mentioned, the turkey was strangely confused 
with the guinea-fowl, a bird to which the name 
turkey was originally applied. 

Later on, both these birds became more abun- 
dant, as more of them were domesticated and 
reared in captivity, and the fact was gradually 
realized that they were entirely different species 
of fowls. During these times, the word turkey 
was finally applied only to the New World 
species, and the West African form was there- 



44 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

after called "Guinea-fowl." 1 After the word 
turkey was more generally applied to the bird 
now universally so known, some believe that 
there was another reason as to how it came about, 
and this "possibly because of its reputed call- 
note," says Newton, "to be syllabled turk, turk, 
turk, whereby it may be almost said to have 
named itself." (Notes and Queries, ser. 6, III, 
pp. 23,369.) 2 

So much for the origin of the name turkey; and 
when one comes to search through the literature 
devoted to this fowl to ascertain who first de- 
scribed the wild species, the opinion seems to be 

'Columella. (De Re Rustica, VIII, cap. 2.) Edwards {Gleanings, II, 
p. 269). 1760? 

! Newton, Alfred. A Dictionary of Birds. (Assisted by Hans Gadow, 
with contributions from Richard Lydekker, Chas. S. Roy, and Robert 
W. Shufeldt, M. D.) Pt. IV, 1896, p. 994. The quotation is from the 
Art. "Turkey," and in further reference to its name, Professor New- 
ton remarks, "The French Coq and Poule a" Inde (whence Dindon) 
involve no contradiction, looking to the general idea of what India then 
was. One of the earliest German names for the bird, Kalekuttisch Hiim 
(whence the Scandinavian Kalkun) must have arisen through some mis- 
take at present inexplicable; but this does not refer, as is generally sup- 
posed, to Calcutta, but to Calicut on the Malabar coast (Notes and 
Queries, ser. 6, X, p. 185). 

"But even Linnaeus could not clear himself of the confusion, and, 
possibly following Sibbald, unhappily misapplied the name Meleagris, 
undeniably belonging to the guinea-fowl, as the generic term for what 
we now know as the turkey, adding thereto as its specific designation 
the word gallopavo, taken from the Gallopavus of Gesner, who, though not 
wholly free from error, was less mistaken than some of his contemporaries 
and even successors." 



THE TURKEY HISTORIC 45 

pretty general that this was done by Oviedo in 
the thirty-sixth chapter of his "Surnmario de la 
Natural Historia de las Indias," which it is 
stated appeared about the year 1527. 

Professor Spencer F. Baird, apparently quot- 
ing Martin, says: "Oviedo speaks of the turkey 
as a kind of peacock abounding in New Spain, 
which had already in 1526 been transported in a 
domestic state to the West India Islands and 
the Spanish Main, where it was kept by the 
Christian colonists." 1 

In an elegant and comprehensive article on 
"The Wild Turkey," Bennett states: "Oviedo, 
whose Natural History of the Indies contains the 
earliest description extant of the bird, and whose 
acquaintance with the animal productions of the 
newly discovered countries was surprisingly ex- 
tensive. He speaks of it as a kind of Peacock 

'Baird, Spencer F. The Origin of the Domestic Turkey. Rep. of 
the Comm. of Agricul. for the year 1866. Washington Gov. Printing 
Office, 1867, pp. 288-290. In this article Professor Baird undertakes to 
demonstrate "that there are two species of wild turkey in North Amer- 
ica; one conflned to the more eastern and southern United States, the 
other to the southern Rocky Mountains and adjacent part of Texas, New 
Mexico, and Arizona; that the latter extends along eastern Mexico as far 
south at least as Orizaba, and that it is from this Mexican species and 
not from that of eastern North America that this domestic turkey is 
derived." [Reprinted in Hist, of N. Amer. Birds, III, p. 411, foot- 
note.] 



46 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

found in New Spain, of which a number had been 
transported to the islands of the Spanish Main, 
and domesticated in the houses of the Christian 
inhabitants. His description is exceedingly ac- 
curate, and proves that before the year 1526, 
when his work was published at Toledo, the 
turkey was already reduced to a state of Do- 
mestication." 1 

Again, in a very elaborate and now thoroughly 
classical contribution, Pennant states: "The 
first precise description of these birds is given 
by Oviedo, who, in 1525, drew up a summary of 
his greater work, the History of the Indies, for 
the use of his monarch Charles V. 2 This learned 
man had visited the West Indies and its islands 
in person, and payed particular regard to the 
natural history. It appears from him, that the 
Turkey was in his days an inhabitant of the 
greater islands and of the main-land. He speaks 

'Bennett, E. T. "The Gardens and Menagerie of the Zoological 
Society delineated." [The Drawings by William Harvey; Engr. by 
Branston and Wright, assisted by other artists] London, 1835. Further 
on, this article will be quoted on other points, as it treats of the entire 
history of the wild turkey. 

2 In the original work, here quoted, names of persons and some 
other nouns are printed in capitals, — an old custom which the pub- 
lishers of the present work decided not to follow. My MS. was made 
to agree with the original in all particulars. R. W. S. 



THE TURKEY HISTORIC 47 

of them as Peacocks; for being a new bird to 
him, he adopts that name from the resemblance 
he thought they bore to the former. 'But,' 
says he, 'the neck is bare of feathers, but cov- 
ered with a skin which they change after their 
phantasie into diverse colours. They have a horn 
(in the Spanish Pegon corto) as it were on their 
front, and hairs on the breast.' (In Purchas, 
III, 995.) He describes other birds which he 
also calls Peacocks. They are of the galli- 
naceous genus, and known by the name of Curas- 
sao birds, the male of which is black, the female 
ferruginous." 1 



'Pennant, Thos. Esqr. F. R. S. "An Account of the Turkey." 
Phil. Trans, of the Royal Society of London. Vol. LXXI for the year 
1781. London [Art.] No. 1. Communicated by Joseph Banks, Esqr., 
P. R. S. Read December 21, 1781, pp. 77, 78. 

Pennant's contribution fills a large place in the literature of the wild 
turkey, and further on I shall take occasion to quote still more extensively 
from it. It starts in by giving in brief the characters of the turkey, and 
in describing the wild turkey he cites the previous works of Josselyn 
(Voyage); Clayton (Virginia); Catesby, Belon, Gesner, Aldrovandus, 
Ray, Buffon, and others. He gives a "Description" of the bird, espe- 
cially the "Tail," and adds that a " White Turkey" — "A most beautiful 
kind has of late been introduced into England of a snowy whiteness, finely 
contrasting with its red head. These I think came from Holland, prob- 
ably bred from an accidental white pair; and from them preserved pure 
from any dark or variegated birds." (p. 68.) 

He presents variation in "Size," quoting Josselyn (New-Eng. Rari- 
ties); Lawson (History of Carolina); and Clayton (Phil. Trans.). Also 
their "Manners"; their being "Gregarious"; "Their Haunts," "Place," 
and much else, having more to do with their habits than their history, 
aud consequently not legitimately to be touched upon in this chapter. 



48 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

Dr. Coues, who has also written an article on 
the history of the wild turkey, which, by the 
way, is mainly composed of a lengthy quotation 
from the above cited article of Bennett's, says: 
"Linnaeus, however, knew perfectly well that 
the turkey was American. He says distinctly: 
' Habitat in America septentrionali,'and quotes as 
his first reference (after Fn. Soec. 198), the Gallo- 
pavo sylvestris novce anglice, or New England 
Wild Turkey of Ray. Brisson distinguished the 
two perfectly, giving an elaborate description, 
a copious synonomy, and a good figure of each; 
and from about this time it may be considered 
that the history of the two birds, so widely di- 
verse, was finally disentangled, and the proper 
habitat ascribed to each." (Refers to first de- 
scribes of the pintado and turkey.) l 

So much for the earliest describers of the wild 



^oues, Elliott. "History of the Wild Turkey." Forest and Stream, 
XIII, January 1, 1879, p. 947. 

Another work I have examined on this part of our subject is D. G. 
Elliot's "Game Birds of America," and the turkey cuts in this book were 
copied by Coues into the last edition of his "Key to North American 
Birds," and very poorly done. Dr. D. G. Elliot's superb work, illus- 
trated by magnificent colored plates by the artist Wolfe, on "A Mono- 
graph of the Phasianidse or the Family of the Pheasants," I have not 
examined. The copy in the Library of Congress was out on a loan when 
I made application for it. Several plates of different species of wild 
turkeys are to be found in it. 



THE TURKEY HISTORIC 49 

turkey, and I shall now pass on to the general 
history of the bird, and, through presenting what 
has been collected for us by the best authors on 
the subject, endeavor to show how, after the 
wild turkey was found in America by different 
navigators and explorers, it was brought, from 
time to time, to several of the countries of the Old 
World — chiefly Spain and Great Britain — from 
whence it probably was taken, upon different 
occasions, into other countries of the continent. 

Wild turkeys have always been easy to cap- 
ture, and we are aware of the fact that they are 
quite capable of crossing the Atlantic on ship- 
board in comfort and safety, landing in as good 
a condition — if properly cared for during the 
voyage — as when they left America. Josselyn 
(1672) in his New England Rarities (p. 9) has not 
a little to say on this point. 

As already stated, the literature and bibli- 
ography of the turkey is quite sufficient to fill a 
good many volumes. Nothing of imporance, 
however, has been added to it, gainsaying what 
we now have as a truthful account of the bird's 
introduction into Europe. Indeed Buffon (Ois, 



50 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

II, pp. 132-162), Broderip (Zool. Rccreat. pp # 
120-137), Pennant (Arct. Zool. pp. 291-300), and 
others, practically cleared up nearly all the 
points on this part of the turkey's history, mak- 
ing but a few statements that are not wholly 
reliable and worthy of acceptance. Pennant 
very properly ignored in his work Barrington's 
essay (Miscellanies, pp. 127-151) in which the 
latter attempted to prove that turkeys were 
known before America was discovered, and that 
they were shipped over there subsequently to 
its discovery ! 

I have already cited above Pennant's article 
in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal 
Society of London (1781), and quoted from it to 
some extent. It is one of the standard writings 
on the wild turkey invariably referred to by 
all authors when writing on the history of that 
bird. As it is only accessible to the few, and so 
full of reliable information, I propose to give 
here, somewhat in full, those paragraphs in it 
having special reference to the historical side of 
our subject, and in doing so I retain the spelling 
and composition of the original production. 



THE TURKEY HISTORIC 51 

"Belon, ('Hist, des Oys.,' 248) the earliest of 
those writers," says Pennant, "who are of the 
opinion that these birds were natives of the old 
world, founds his notion on the description of 
the Guinea-fowl, the Meleagrides of Strabo, 
Athenaeus, Pliny, and others of the ancients. 
I rest the refutation on the excellent account 
given by Athenseus, taken from Clytus Milesius, 
a disciple of Aristotle, which can suit no other 
than that fowl. " They want," says he, " natural 
affection towards their young; their head is 
naked, and on the top is a hard round body like 
a peg or nail; from their cheeks hangs a red piece 
of flesh like a beard. It has no wattles like the 
common poultry. The feathers are black, spot- 
ted with white. They have no spurs; and both 
sexes are so alike as not to be distinguished by the 
sight." Varro (Lib. III. c.9.) and Pliny (Lib. X. 
c. 26) take notice of the spotted plumage and 
the gibbous substance on the head. Athenseus 
is more minute, and contradicts every character 
of the Turkey, whose females are remarkable for 
their natural affection, and differ materially in 
form from the males, whose heads are destitute 



52 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

of the callous substance, and whose heels (in the 
males) are armed with spurs." 

"Aldrovandus, who died in 1605, draws his 
arguments from the same source as Belon; I there- 
fore pass him by, and take notice of the greatest 
of our naturalists Gesner (Av. 481.), who falls into 
a mistake of another kind, and wishes theTurkey 
to be thought a native of India. He quotes 
yElian for that purpose, who tells us, 'That in 
India are very large poultry not with combs, but 
with various coloured crests interwoven like 
flowers, with broad tails either bending or dis- 
played in a circular form, which they draw along 
the ground as peacocks do when they do not 
erect them ; and that the feathers are partly of a 
gold colour, partly blue, and of an emerald col- 
our.' (De Anim. lib. XVI. c, 2.). 

"This in all probability was the same bird with 
the Peacock Pheasant of Mr. Edwards, Le Baron 
de Tibet of M. Brisson, and the Pavo bicalcaratus 
of Linnseus. I have seen this bird living. It 
has a crest, but not so conspicuous as that de- 
scribed by iElian; but it has not those striking 
colours in form of eyes, neither does it erect its 



THE TURKEY HISTORIC 53 

tail like the Peacock (Edw. II. 67.), but trails it 
like the Pheasant. The Catreus of Strabo (Lib. 
XV. p. 1046) seems to be the same bird. He 
describes it as uncommonly beautiful and spot- 
ted, and very like a Peacock. The former au- 
thor (De Anim. lib. XVII, c. 23.) gives more 
minute account of this species, and under the 
same name. He borrows it from Clitarchus, 
an attendant of Alexander the Great in all his 
conquests. It is evident from his description 
that it was of this kind ; and it is likewise prob- 
able that it was the same with his large Indian 
poultry before cited. He celebrates it also for 
its fine note; but allowance must be made for the 
credulity of iElian. 

"The Catreus, or Peacock Pheasant, is a native 
of Tibet, and in all probability of the north of 
India, where Clitarchus might have observed it; 
for the march of Alexander was through that 
part which borders on Tibet, and is now known 
by the name of Penj-ab or five rivers." 

"I shall now collect from authors the several 
parts of the world where Turkies are unknown 
in the state of nature. Europe has no share in 



54 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

the question; it being generally agreed that they 
are exotic in respect to that continent." 

"Neither are they found in any part of Asia 
Minor, or the Asiatic Turkey, notwithstanding 
ignorance of their true origin first caused them 
to be named from that empire. About Aleppo, 
capital of Syria, they are only met with, do- 
mesticated like other poultry. (Russel, 63). 
In Armenia they are unknown, as well as in 
Persia; having been brought from Venice by 
some Armenian merchants into that empire 
(Tavernier, 145), where they are still so scarce 
as to be preserved among other rare fowls in the 
royal menagery" (Bell's Travels, I. 128). 

"Du Halde acquaints us that they are not 
natives of China; but were introduced there 
from other countries. He errs from misin- 
formation in saying that they are common in 
India." 

" I will not quote Gemelli Careri, to prove that 
they are not found in the Philippine Islands, 
because that gentleman with his pen traveled 
round the world in his easy chair, during a very 
long indisposition and confinement, (Sir James 






THE TURKEY HISTORIC 55 

Porter's Obs. Turkey, I, 1, 321), in his native 
country." 

"But Dampier bears witness that none are 
found in Mindanao" (Barbot in Churchill's Coll., 
V.29). 

"The hot climate of Africa barely suffers these 
birds to exist in that vast continent, except under 
the care of mankind. Very few are found in 
Guinea, except in the hands of the Europeans, 
the negroes declining to breed any on account of 
the great heats (Bosman, 229) . Prosper Alpinus 
satisfies us they are not found either in Nubia or 
in Egypt. He describes the Meleagrides of the 
ancients, and only proves that the Guinea hens 
were brought out of Nubia, and sold at a great 
price at Cairo (Hist. Nat. iEgypti. I, 201); 
but is totally silent about the turkey of the 
moderns." 

"Let me in this place observe that the Guinea 
hens have long been imported into Britain. 
They were cultivated in our farm-yards; for I 
discover in 1277, in the Grainge of Clifton, in the 
parish of Ambrosden in Buckinghamshire, among 
other articles, six Mutilones and six Africance 



56 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

foemince (Kennett's Parochial Antiq. 287), for 
this fowl was familiarly known by the names of 
Afra Avis and Gallina Africana and Numida. 
It was introduced into Italy from Africa, and 
from Rome into our country. They were neg- 
lected here by reason of their tenderness and 
difficulty of rearing. We do not find them in 
the bills of fare of our ancient feasts (neither in 
that of George Nevil nor among the delicacies 
mentioned in the Northumberland household 
book begun in the beginning of the reign of Henry 
VIII) ; neither do we find the turkey ; which last 
argument amounts almost to a certainty, that 
such a hardy and princely bird had not found 
its way to us. The other likewise was then 
known by its classical name; for that judicious 
writer Doctor Caius describes in the beginning 
of the reign of Elizabeth, the Guinea-fowl, for the 
benefit of his friend Gesner, under the name of 
Meleagris, bestowed on it by Aristotle" (CAII 
Opusc. 13. Hist. An., lib. VI. c. 2). 

"Having denied, on the very best authorities, 
that the Turkey ever existed as a native of the old 
world, I must now bring my proofs of its being 



THE TURKEY HISTORIC 57 

only a native of the new, and of the period in 
which it first made its appearance in Europe." 

"The next who speaks of them as natives of 
the mainland of the warmer parts of America is 
Francusco Fernandez, sent there by Philip II, 
to whom he was physician. This naturalist ob- 
served them in Mexico. We find by him that 
the name of the male was Huexolotl, of the fe- 
male Cihuatotolin. He gives them the title of 
Gallus Indicus and Gallo Pavo. The Indians, 
as well as the Spaniards, domesticated these 
useful birds. He speaks of the size by compari- 
son, saying that the wild were twice the magni- 
tude of the tame; and that they were shot with 
arrows or guns (Hist. Av. Nov. Hisp. 27). I 
cannot learn the time when Fernandez wrote. 
It must be between the years 1555 and 1598, the 
period of Philip's reign." 

"Pedro de Ciesa mentions Turkies on the 
Isthmus of Darien (Seventeen Years Travels, 
20). Lery, a Portugese author, asserts that 
they are found in Brazil, and gives them an 
Indian name (In De Laet's Descr. des Indes, 
491); but since I can discover no traces of them 



58 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

in that diligent and excellent naturalist Marc- 
grave, who resided long in that country, I must 
deny my assent. But the former is confirmed 
by that able and honest navigator Dampier, 
who saw them frequently, as well wild as tame, 
in the province of Yucatan (Voyages, Vol II, 
part II, pp. 65, 85, 114), now reckoned part 
of the Kingdom of Mexico." 

"In North America they were observed by the 
very first discoverers. When Rene de Landon- 
niere, patronized by Admiral Coligni, attempted 
to form a settlement near where Charlestown 
now stands, he met with them on his first 
landing in 1564, and by his historian has repre- 
sented them with great fidelity in the fifth plate 
of the recital of his voyage (Debry) : from his 
time the witnesses to their being natives of the 
continent are innumerable. They have been 
seen in flocks of hundreds in all parts from 
Louisiana even to Canada; but at this time are 
extremely rare in a wild state, except in the more 
distant parts, where they are still found in vast 
abundance." 

"It was from Mexico or Yucatan that they 



THE TURKEY HISTORIC 59 

were first introduced into Europe; for it is certain 
that they were imported into England as early 
as the year 1524, the 15th of Henry VIII. (Ba- 
ker's Chr. Anderson's Diet., Com. 1, 354. Hack- 
luyt, II, 165, makes their introduction about the 
year 1532. Barnaby Googe, one of our early 
writers on Husbandry, says they were not seen 
here before 1530. He highly commends a Lady 
Hales of Kent for her excellent management of 
these fowl, p. 166.) 

"We probably received them from Spain, with 
which we had great intercourse till about that 
time. They were most successfully cultivated 
in our Kingdom from that period; insomuch 
that they grew common in every farm-yard, 
and became even a dish in our rural feasts by 
the year 1585; for we may certainly depend on 
the word of old Tusser in his Account of the 
Christmas Husbandrie Fare. " (Five Hundred 
Points of good Husbandrie, p. 57.) 

"Beefe, Mutton, and Porke, shredpiece 
of the best, 
Pig, Veale, Goose, and Capon, and 
Turkie well drest, 



60 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

Cheese, Apples and Nuts, jolie 

carols to heare, 
As then in the countrie, is counted 
good cheare." 

"But at this very time they were so rare in 
France, that we are told, that the very first which 
was eaten in that Kingdom appeared at the 
nuptial feast of Charles IX. in 1570 (Anderson 's 
Diet. Com. 1, 410)." 1 

A little later on Bartram in his travels in the 
South published some notes on the wild turkey 
[now M. g. osceola] as he found them in Florida 
during the latter part of the eighteenth century. 
The original edition of his book, which I have not 
seen, appeared in 1791. I have, however, ex- 
amined the edition of 1793, wherein on page 14 
he says: "Our turkey of America is a very 
different species from the Meleagris of Asia 

'Pennant's article is illustrated by a folding plate giving the leg of a 
turkey bearing a supernumery toe situated in front of the tibiotarsus 
with the claw above. The note in reference to it is here reproduced in 
order to complete the article. Philos. Trans., Vol. LXXI, Ab. Ill, 
p. 80: 

" To this account I beg leave to lay before you the very extraordinary 
appearance on the thigh of a turkey bred in my poultry yard, and which 
was killed a few years ago for the table. The servant in plucking it was 
very unexpectedly wounded in the hand. On examination the cause 
appeared so singular that the bird was brought to me. I discovered 
that from the thigh-bone issued a short upright process, and to that grew 
a large and strong toe, with a sharp and crooked claw, exactly resembling 
that of a rapacious bird." 



THE TURKEY HISTORIC 61 

and Europe; they are nearly thrice their size 
and weight. I have seen several that have 
weighed between twenty and thirty pounds, 
and some have been killed that have weighed 
near forty." 

And further on in the same work he adds 
[Florida, p. 81] : " Having rested very well during 
the night, I was awakened in the morning early 
by the cheering converse of the wild turkey- 
cocks (Meleagris occidentalis) saluting each 
other from the sun-brightened tops of the lofty 
Cupressus disticha and Magnolia grandiflora. 
They begin at early dawn and continue till sun- 
rise, from March to the last of April. The high 
forests ring with the noise, like the crowing of 
the domestic cock, of these social sentinels; the 
watchword being caught and repeated, from 
one to another, for hundreds of miles around, 
insomuch that the whole country is for an hour 
or more in a universal shout. A little after 
sunrise, their crowing gradually ceases, they 
quit then their high lodging places, and alight 
on the earth, where, expanding their silver-bor- 
dered train, they strut and dance round about 



62 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

the coy female, while the deep forests seem to 
tremble with their shrill noise." 1 

Another of the early writers (1806), who paid 
some attention to the history and distribution of 
the wild turkeys was Barton. I find the following 
having reference to some of his observations, viz. : 
"A memoir has been read before the American 
Philosophical Society in which the author has 
shown that at least two distinct species of Mele- 
agris, or turkey, are known within the limits of 
North America. These are the Meleagris gallo- 
pavo, or Common Domesticated Turkey, which 
was wholly unknown in the countries of the Old 
World before the discovery of America; and the 
Common Wild Turkey of the United States, to 
which the author of the memoir has given the name 
Meleagris Palawa — one of its Indian names. 

'Bartram, William. Travels through North and South Carolina, 
Georgia, East and West Florida, the Cherokee Country, the Extensive 
Territories of the Muscogalges or Creek Confederacy, and the Country 
of the Choctaws. Containing an account of the soil and Natural Pro- 
ductions of those regions; together with observations on the manners of 
the Indians. Embellished with Copper Plates. 

The original edition of Bartram is cited in the Third Instalment of 
American Ornithological Bibliography by Elliott Coues (the references 
being pp. 83 and 290 bis). Bull. U. S. Geol. and Geogr. Surv. Terr. 
1879, p. 810, Govm't Printing Office. It is here in this work of his that 
Bartram designates the domestic turkey as Meleagris gallopavo, Linn.; 
and the wild turkey of this country (M . occidentalis) (p. 83) as M. 
americanus (p. 290 bis). 



THE TURKEY HISTORIC 63 

"The same author has rendered it very prob- 
able that this latter species was domesticated 
by some of the Indian tribes living within the 
present limits of the United States, before these 
tribes had been visited by the Europeans. It 
is certain, however, that the turkey was not do- 
mesticated by the generality of the tribes, within 
the limits just mentioned, until after the Euro- 
peans had taken possession of the countries of 
North America." 1 

Nine or ten years after Barton wrote, De Witt 
Clinton, who was a candidate for President of 
the United States in 1812, and a son of James 
Clinton, was one of the writers of that time on 
the wild turkey. He pointed out how birds, 
the turkey included, change their plumage after 
domestication, and, after giving what he knew 
of the introduction of the turkey into Spain from 
America and the West Indies, he adds: "From 
the Spanish turkey, which was thus spread over 



'Barton, P. S. The Philadelphia Medical and Physical Journal, Vol. 
II, 1806, pp. 162-164. Coues, in his Orniiho. Biblio., cited above, omits 
the words, "The Philadelphia," which gives trouble to find the work in a 
library; he also has the year wrong, giving 1805 for 1806 — the latter 
being correct. The copy I consulted had no PI. 1, with the article, 
that I happened to see. 



64 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

Europe, we have obtained our domestic one. 
The wild turkey has been frequently tamed, and 
his offspring is of a large size." (p. 126.) * 

Nearly a quarter of a century after Clinton 's 
article appeared, the anatomy of the wild turkey 
began to attract some attention. Among the 
first articles to appear on this part of the sub- 
ject was one by the late Sir Richard Owen, who, 
apparently taking the similarity of the vernac- 
ular names into account, made anatomical 
comparisons of the organs of smell in the tur- 
key and the turkey buzzard. Naturally, he 
found them very different, — quite as different, 
perhaps, as are the olfactory organs of an owl 
and an ostrich, which I, for one, would not under- 
take to make a comparison of for publication, 
simply for the fact that in both these birds their 
vernacular name begins with the letter o. 2 

Even twenty years after this paper appeared 
there were those who still entertained doubts 
as to the origin of the domesticated turkeys, and 
believed that they had nothing to do with the 

'Clinton, De Witt. Trans. Lit. and PhUos. Soc, New York, 1, 1815, 
pp. 21-184. Note S. pp. 125-128. 

2 Owen, R. P. Z. S. V. 1837, pp. 34, 35. 



THE TURKEY HISTORIC 65 

wild forms. Among the doubters, no one was 
more prominent than Le Conte, who published 
the following as his opinion at the time, stating : 
"The conviction that these two birds were really 
distinct species has long existed in my mind. 
More than fifty years ago, when I first saw a 
Wild Turkey, I was led to conclude that one 
never could have been produced from the other." 
[Bases it on differences of external characters] 
(p. 179), adding toward the close of his article: 
"I defy any one to show a Turkey, even of the first 
generation, produced from a pair hatched from the 
eggs of a wild hen," etc. "I repeat, contrary to 
the assertions of many others, that no one has 
ever succeeded in domesticating our Wild Tur- 
key," etc. "Thoroughly believe that the tame 
and wild bird are different species, and the latter 
not the ancestor of the tame one." (p. 181.) l 

1 Le Conte, John. Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci, of Phila. IX, 1857, pp. 
179-181. The distinctive characters and the habits, as given by this 
luthor of the wild and domesticated turkeys of the United States, are 
doubtless of some value; but the deductions he draws from the com- 
parisons made are, as we know, quite erroneous. I have not examined 
the article by E. Roger in the Bull. Soc. Acclim. cited by Coues in his 
Ornitho. Biblio. as having appeared in the "2c Ser. VII, 1870, pp. 264- 
266." Either the year or the pagination, or both, of the citation is 
wrong, and as many of the copies were out at the time of my search, 
and the others distributed through several libraries, I failed to obtain 
it. R. W. S. 



66 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

During the year 1856, the papers Gould pub- 
lished on the wild turkeys attracted considerable 
attention, and they have been widely quoted 
since. In one of his first papers on the subject 
he quotes from Martin the same paragraph which 
Baird quoted in his article in the Report of the 
Commissioner of Agriculture (1866 antea), while 
Baird in his article misquotes Gould by saying 
that the turkey was introduced into England in 
1541; whereas Gould states the introduction 
took place in 1524. l 

'Gould, J. 2. On a new turkey, Meleagris Mexicana. P. Z. S. 
XXIV, 1856, pp. 61-63. (In his Ornithol. Bibliogr.) Coues remarks 
upon this as follows : " Subsequently determined to be the stock whence 
the domestic bird descended, and hence a synonym of M. gallopavo, 
Linn." 

This paper was extensively republished at the time, generally under 
the title of "A new species of turkey from Mexico" [all citing the P. Z. 
S. article]. One journal quoted it as follows: "Mr. Gould exhibited a 
specimen of turkey which he had obtained in Mexico, and which dif- 
fered materially from the wild turkey of the United States. At the 
same time this turkey so closely resembled the domesticated turkey of 
Europe that he believed naturalists were wrong in attributing its origin 
to the United States species. The present specimen was therefore a new 
species, and he proposed to call it Meleagris Mexicana, which, if his 
theory was correct, must henceforth be the designation of the common 
turkey." Amer. Jour. Sci. XXII, 1856, p. 139. Under the same title 
this latter was reprinted in Edinb. New Philos. Journ. n. s., iv, 1856, 
pp. 371, 372. See also Bryant, H. "Remarks on the supposed new species 
of turkey, Meleagris Mexicana, recently described by Mr. Gould." Proc. 
Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist, vi, 1857, pp. 158,159. "In the Proceedings of the 
Zoological Society of London for 1856, page 61," says Professor Baird, 
" Mr. Gould characterizes as new a wild turkey from the mines of Real 
del Norte, in Mexico, under the name of Meleagris Mexicana, and is the 
first to suggest that it is derived from the domesticated bird, and not 
from the common wild turkey of eastern North America, on which he 



THE TURKEY HISTORIC 67 

Before passing to the more recent literature on 
these birds, and what I will have to say further 
on about their comparative osteology and their 
eggs, it will be as well to reproduce here a few more 
statements made by Bennett, whose work, "The 
Gardens and Menagerie of the Zoological 
Society Delineated," I have already quoted. 1 



retains the name of M. gallopavo, of Linnaeus. He stated that the 
peculiarities of the new species consist chiefly in the creamy white tips 
of the tail feathers and of the upper tail coverts, with some other points 
of minor importance. I suggest that the wild turkey of New Mexico, 
as referred to by various writers, belongs to this new species, and not to 
the M. gallopavo." (loc. cit. p. 289.) Compare the above with what 
Professor Baird states in the series of the Pacif. Railroad Reports, vol., 
ix, p. 618, with the remainder of the above quoted article, which is too 
long to reproduce here. 

'Bennett, E. T. "Publ. with the sanction of the council under the 
superintendence of the Secretary and Vice Secretary of the Society. 
Birds. Vol. II. London, 1835, pp. 209-224." There is a very excel- 
lent wood-cut of a turkey illustrating this article (left lateral view), of 
which the author says: "Our own figure is taken from a young male, in 
imperfect plumage, brought from America by Mr. Audubon. Another 
specimen, in very brilliant plumage, but perhaps not purely wild, forms 
a part of the Society's Museum" (p. 223). Bennett derived most of his 
information about the habits of the wild turkey in nature "from an excel- 
lent memoir by M. Charles Lucien Bonaparte, in his continuation of 
Wilson's American Ornithology." 

"In that work M. Bonaparte claims credit for having given the first 
representation of the wild turkey; 1 and justly so, for the figures intro- 
duced into a landscape in the account of De Laudonniere's Voyage to 
Florida in De Bry's Collection, and that published by Bricknell in his 
Natural History of North Carolina, cannot with certainty be referred 
to the native bird. They are besides too imperfect to be considered as 
characteristic representations of the species. Much about the same 
time with M. Bonaparte's figure appeared another, in M. Viellot's Gal- 
erie des Oiseaux, taken from a specimen in the Paris Museum. 

'Newton disputes this and says: "In 1555 both sexes were characteristically 
figured by Belon (Oiseaux, p. 249), as was the cock by Gesner in the same year, 
ami these are the earliest representations of the bird known to exist." (Diet. 
Of Birds, pp. 995, 996.) 



68 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

Bennett was also of the opinion that "Daines 
Barrington was the last writer of any note who 
denied the American origin of the turkey, and he 
seems to have been actuated more by a love of 
paradox than by any conviction of the truth of 
his theory. Since the publication of his Mis- 
cellanies, in 1781, the knowledge that has been 
obtained of the existence of large flocks of tur- 
keys, perfectly wild, clothed in their natural 
plumage, and displaying their native habits, 
spread over a large portion of North America, 
together with the certainty of their non-existence 
in a similar state in any other part of the globe, 
have been admitted on all hands to be decisive 
of the question." (p. 210). 

I have already cited the evidence above to 
prove that it was Oviedo who first published an 
accurate description of the wild turkey, — his 
work being published at Toledo in about the 
year 1526, at which time the turkey had already 

"It is somewhat singular that so noble a bird, and in America at least 
by no means a rare one, should have remained unfigured until within five 
years of the present time; all the plates in European works being mani- 
festly derived from domestic specimens." Bennett was aware that 
Audubon's Plates were published about this time, for he mentions them. 
He also was well informed in matters regarding the crossing of the wild 
male turkey with the female domestic one, and with the improvement 
in the breed thus obtained. 



THE TURKEY HISTORIC 69 

become domesticated. In other words, it was 
the Spaniards who first reduced the bird to a 
state of domestication, and very soon thereafter 
it was introduced into England. Spain and Eng- 
land were the great maritime nations of those 
times, and this fact will amply account for the 
early introduction of the bird into the latter 
country. Singularly enough, however, we have 
no account of any kind whatever through which 
we can trace the exact time when this took place. 
As others have suggested, it is just possible that 
it may have been Cabot, the explorer of the then 
recently discovered coasts of America, who first 
transported wild turkeys into England. Baker 
quotes the popular rhyme in his Chronicle: 

"Turkeys, carps, hoppes, picarel and beer, 
Came into England all in one year," 

that is, about 1524, or the 15th of the reign of 
Henry VIII. 1 

What was said by the German author Heres- 
bach was translated by a writer on agricultural 

'Newton states that this assertion "is wholly untrustworthy," as 
carp, pickerel (and other commodities) both lived in this country 
(England) long before 1524, "if indeed they were not indigenous to it." 
(Diet, of Birds, p. 995). 



70 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

subjects, Barnaby Googe, who published it in his 
work. This appeared in the year 1614, and he 
refers to "those outlandish birds called Ginny- 
Cocks and Turkey-Cocks," stating that "before 
the yeare of our Lord 1530 they were not seene 
with us!" 

Further, Bennett points out that "A more 
positive authority is Hakluyt, who in certain 
instructions given by him to a friend at Con- 
stantinople, bearing date of 1582, mentions, 
among other valuable things introduced into 
England from foreign parts, ' Turkey-Cocks and 
hennes' as having been brought in "about fifty 
years past." We may therefore fairly conclude 
that they became known in this country about 
the year 1530. 1 

Guinea-fowls were extremely rare in England 
throughout the sixteenth century, while tame 
turkeys became very abundant there, forming 
by no means an expensive dish at festivals, — - 
the first were obtained from the Levant, while 
the latter were to be found in poultry yards 

'No two authors seem to agree upon the exact date when the turkey 
was really introduced into England. Here Bennett states positively 
1530; Professor Baird has it 1541; Alfred Newton 1524, and so on. 



THE TURKEY HISTORIC 71 

nearly everywhere. In one of the Constitutions 
of Archbishop Cranmer it was ordered that of 
fowls as large as swans, cranes, and turkey- 
cocks, "there should be but one in a dish." 1 

When in 1555 the serjeants-at-law were 
created, they provided for their inauguration 
dinner two turkeys and four turkey chicks at a 
cost each of only four shillings, swans and cranes 
being ten, and half a crown each for capons. At 
this rate, turkeys could not have been so very 
scarce in those parts. 2 "Indeed they had be- 
come so plentiful in 1573," continues Bennett, 
"that honest Tusser, in his 'Five Hundred 
Points of Good Husbandrie,'" enumerates them 
among the usual Christinas fare at a farmer's 
table, and speaks of them as " ill neighbors " both 
to "peason " and to hops. (pp. 212, 213.) 

"A Frenchman named Pierre Gilles has the 
credit of having first described the turkey in this 
quarter of the globe, in his additions to a Latin 
translation of Aelian, published by him in 1535. 
His description is so true to nature as to have 



'Leland's Collectanea, (1541). 
^Dugdale. "Origines Juridiciales." 



72 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

been almost wholly relied on by every subsequent 
writer down to Willoughby. He speaks of it as 
a bird that he has seen ; and he had not then been 
further from his native country than Venice; and 
states it to have been brought from the New 
World. 

"That turkeys were known in France at this 
period is further proved by a passage in Cham- 
pier's 'Treatise de Re Cibaria,' published in 
1560, and said to have been written thirty years 
before. This author also speaks of them as hav- 
ing been brought but a few years back from the 
newly discovered Indian islands. From this 
time forward their origin seems to have been 
entirely forgotten, and for the next two centuries 
we meet with little else in the writings of orni- 
thologists concerning them than an accumula- 
tion of citations from the ancients, which bear 
no manner of relation to them. In the year 1566 
a present of twelve turkeys was thought not 
unworthy of being offered by the municipality 
of Amiens to their king, at whose marriage, in 
1570, Anderson states in his History of Com- 
merce, but we know not on what authority, 



THE TURKEY HISTORIC 73 

they were first eaten in France. Heresbach, as 
we have seen, asserts that they were introduced 
into Germany about 1530; and that a sumptu- 
ary law made at Venice in 1557, quoted by Za- 
noni, particularizes the tables at which they were 
permitted to be served. 

"So ungrateful are mankind for the most im- 
portant benefits that not even a traditionary 
vestige remains of the men by whom, or the coun- 
try from whence, this most useful bird was 
introduced into any European states. Little 
therefore is gained from its early history beyond 
the mere proof of the rapidity with which the 
process of domestication may sometimes be ef- 
fected." (pp. 213, 214.) 

Some ten or more years ago, at a time when I 
was the natural history editor of Shooting and 
Fishing, in New York City, I published a number 
of criticisms and original articles upon turkeys, 
both the wild and domesticated forms. 1 



'Shufeldt, R. W. " The Ancestry of the American Turkey," Shoot- 
ing and Fishing, Vol. 24, No. 13, New York, July 14, 1898, p. 246. 
"Wild and Domesticated Turkeys," Ibid, No. 17, August 11, 1898, p. 
331. "A Reply to the Turkey Hunters," Ibid. No. 23, September 22, 
1898, pp, 451, 452. "The Wild Turkey of Arizona," Ibid. Vol. 32, 
No. 5, New York, May 22, 1902, pp. 108,109. 



74 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

About twelve years ago, Mr. Nelson contrib- 
uted a very valuable article on wild turkeys, 
portions of which are eminently worthy of the 
space here required to quote them. 1 He says 
among other things in this article that "All recent 
ornithologists have considered the wild turkey 
of Mexico and the southwestern United States 
(aside from M. gallopavo intermedia) as the 
ancestor of the domesticated bird. This idea 
is certainly erroneous, as is shown by the series of 
specimens now in the collection of the Biolog- 
ical Survey. When the Spaniards first entered 
Mexico they landed near the present city of 
Vera Cruz and made their way thence to the 
City of Mexico. 

"At this time they found domesticated turkeys 
among the Indians of that region, and within a 
few years the birds were introduced, into Spain. 2 

'Nelson, E. W. "Description of a New Subspecies of Meleagris 
gallopavo and proposed changes in the nomenclature of certain North 
American birds." Auk, XVII, April 1900, pp. 120-123. 

2 Among the luxuries belonging to the high condition of civilization 
exhibited by the Mexican nation at the time of the Spanish conquest 
was the possession of Montezuma by one of the most extensive zoological 
gardens on record, numbering nearly all the animals of that country, with 
others brought at much expense from great distances, and it is stated 
that turkeys were supplied as food in large numbers daily to the beasts 
of prey in the menagerie of the Mexican Emperor. (Baird, ibid pp. 
288, 289.) 



Plate IV 




Fig. 12. Superior view of the cranium of a large male tame turkey, with right 
nasal bone (n) attached in situ. Specimen in Dr. Shufeldt's private collection. 
Fig. 13. Left lateral view of the skull of a female turkey, probably a wild one. 
No. IQ684, Coll. U. S. National Museum. (See Fig. 8, PI. II.) c, bony entrance 
to ear. Compare contour line of cranium with Fig. 14. Fig. 14. Left lateral 
view of the cranium of a tame turkey; male. Dr. Shufeldt's private collection. 
Fig. 15. Direct posterior view of the cranium of a tame turkey, probably a 
female, pf, postfrontal. Specimen in Dr. Shufeldt's collection. Fig. 16. Skull of a 
wild Florida turkey, seen from below (M. g. oscenla). (See Fig. 10, PI. II.) Bones 
named in Fig. iS. Photo natural size by Dr. Shufeldt and considerably reduced. 



THE TURKEY HISTORIC 75 

"The part of the country occupied by the 
Spanish during the first few years of the conquest 
in which wild turkeys occur is the eastern slope 
of the Cordillera in Vera Cruz, and there is every 
reason to suppose that this must have been the 
original home of the birds domesticated by the 
natives of that region. 

"Gould's description of the type of M. mexi- 
cana is not sufficiently detailed to determine the 
exact character of this bird, but fortunately the 
type was figured in Elliot's "Birds of North 
America." ... In addition Gould's type 
apparently served for the description of the adult 
male M. gallopavo in the 'Catalogue of Birds 
Brit. Mus.' (xxii, p. 387), and an adult female 
is described in the same volume from Ciudad 
Ranch Durango. . . . Thus it will be- 
come necessary to treat M. gallopavo and M. mexi- 
cana as at least subspecifically distinct. What- 
ever may be the relationship of M . mexicana to M. 
gallopavo, the M. g. merriami is easily separable 
from M. g. mexicana of the Sierra Madre of western 
Mexico, from Chihuahua to Colima. Birds from 
northern Chihuahua are intermediate." 



76 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

In this article Mr. Nelson names M. g. mer- 
riami and gives full descriptions of the adult 
male and female in winter plumage. 

What has thus far been presented above on the 
first discovery of the American wild turkeys, 
their natural history in the New World, their 
introduction into Spain, England, France, and 
elsewhere, is practically all we have on this part 
of our subject up to date. What I have given 
is from the very best ornithological and other 
authorities. Domesticated turkeys are now 
found in nearly all parts of the world, while in 
only a very few instances has any record been 
kept of the different times of their introduction. 
With the view of accumulating such data, one 
would have to search the histories of all the 
countries of all the civilized and semi-civilized 
peoples of the world, which would be the labor of 
almost a man's entire lifetime, and in only too 
many instances his search would be in vain, for 
the several records of the times of introducing 
these birds were not made. 

Apart from the description of the wild turkeys, 
there is still a very large literature devoted to the 



THE TURKEY HISTORIC 77 

domesticated forms of turkeys as they occur in 
this country and abroad, as well as descriptions 
of their eggs. I have gone over a large part of 
this literature, but shall be able to use only a 
small, though nevertheless essential, part of it 
here. This I shall complete with an account of 
turkey eggs, which will be presented quite apart 
from anything to do with their nests, nesting 
habits, and much else which will be fully treated 
in other chapters of this book. In some works 
we meet with the literature of all these subjects 
together, others have only a part, while still 
others are confined to one thing, as the eggs. 1 
Darwin in his works paid considerable attention 
to the wild and tame turkeys. He states that 
"Professor Baird believes (as quoted in Teget- 
meier's 'Poultry Book,' 1866, p. 269) that our 
turkeys are descended from a West Indian species, 
now extinct. But besides the improbability of a 
bird having long ago become extinct in these 
large and luxuriant islands, it appears, as we 



'Ogilvie-Grant, W. R. "A Hand-book to the Game-Birds." 
(Lloyd's Nat. Hist., London, 1897, pp. 103-111.) Genus Meleagris. De- 
scribes briefly some of the North American Turkeys, and also M. ocellata 
(full page colored figure) . Nest and eggs of all described in brief. 



78 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

shall presently see, that the turkey degenerates 
in India, and this fact indicates that this was not 
aboriginally an inhabitant of the lowlands of the 
tropics. 

"F. Michaux," he further points out, "sus- 
pected in 1802 that the common domestic turkey 
was not descended from the United States species 
alone, but was likewise from a southern form, and 
he went sof aras to believe thatEnglish and French 
turkeys differed from having different proportions 
of the blood of the two parent-forms. 1 

"English turkeys are smaller than either wild 
form. They have not varied in any great de- 
gree; but there are some breeds which can be 
distinguished — as Norfolks, Suffolks, Whites, 
and Copper-Coloured (or Cambridge), all of 
which, if precluded from crossing with other 
breeds, propagate their kind truly. Of these 
kinds, the most distinct is the small, hardy, dull- 
black Norfolk turkey, of which the chickens are 
black, with occasionally white patches about the 

'Michaux, F. "Travels in N. Amer." 1802 Eng. Trans., p. 217. 
See also the following: Blyth, E., "Ann. and Mag. of Nat. Hist.," 1847, 
vol. xx., p 391. This author points out that these turkeys in India are 
flightless, black in color, small, and the appendage over the bill of 
great size. 



THE TURKEY HISTORIC 79 

head. The other breeds scarcely differ except 
in colour, and their chickens are generally mot- 
tled all over with brownish-grey. 1 

"In Holland there was formerly, according to 
Temminick, a beautiful buff-yellow breed, fur- 
nished with an ample white topknot. Mr. 
Wilmot has described a white turkey-cock with 
a crest formed of 'feathers about four inches 
long, with bare quills, and a tuft of soft down 
growing at the end.' 2 Many of the young birds 
whilst young inherited this kind of crest, but 
afterwards it either fell off or was pecked out by 
the other birds. This is an interesting case, as 
with care a new breed might probably have been 
formed; and a topknot of this nature would have 
been, to a certain extent, analogous to that borne 
by the males in several allied genera, such as 
Euplocomus, Lophophoras, and Pavo." z 

*Dixon, E. S. "Ornamental Poultry," 1848, p. 34. This author also 
noted the interesting fact that the female of the domesticated turkey 
sometimes has the tuft of hair on her breast like the male. Bechstein 
refers to the old German fable or superstition that a hen turkey lays as 
many eggs as the gobbler has feathers in the under tail-coverts, which, 
as we know, vary in number. (Naturgesch. Deutschlands, B iii, 1793, 
s. 309.). 

'"Gardiner's Chronicle," 1852, p. 699. 

'Darwin, Charles. "Animals and Plants Under Domestication," 
Vol. 1, 1868, pp. 352-355. Other facts of this character are set forth 
here which are of interest in the present connection. 



80 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

Darwin has further pointed out that "The 
tuft of hair on the breast of the wild turkey-cock 
cannot be of any use, and it is doubtful whether 
it can be ornamental in the eyes of the female 
birds; indeed, had the tuft appeared under do- 
mestication, it would have been called a mon- 
strosity. 

"The naked skin on the head of a vulture is 
generally considered as a direct adaptation for 
wallowing in putridity; and so it may be, or it 
may possibly be due to the direct action of putrid 
matter; but we should be very cautious in draw- 
ing any such inference, when we see that the skin 
on the head of the clean-feeding male turkey is 
likewise naked." 1 

Newton has pointed out that the topknotted 
turkeys were figured by Albin in 1738, and that 
it "has been suggested with some appearance of 
probability that the Norfolk breed may be de- 
scended from the northern form, Meleagris gal- 
lopavo or americana, while the Cambridgeshire 
breed may spring from the southern form the M . 

'Darwin, Charles. "The Origin of Species," 1880, pp. 70, 158. 
He also shows that the young of wild turkey are instinctively wild. 



THE TURKEY HISTORIC 81 

mexicana of Gould (P. Z. S. 1856, p. 61), which 
indeed it very much resembles, especially in 
having its tail-coverts and quills tipped with 
white or light ochreous — points that recent 
North American ornithologists rely upon as dis- 
tinctive of this form. If this supposition be 
true, there would be reason to believe in the 
double introduction of the bird into England at 
least, as already hinted, but positive information 
is almost wholly wanting." (Ibid., p. 996.) . 

It is an interesting fact that the males of both 
the wild and tame forms of turkeys frequently 
lack spurs; 1 and Henshaw has pointed out that 
in the case of M. g. merriami "A few of the gob- 
blers had spurs; in one instance these took the 
form of a blunt, rounded knob half an inch long. 
In others, however, it was much reduced, and 
in others still the spur was wanting; though my 
impression is that all the old males had this wea- 
pon." 2 

One of the best articles which have been con- 
tributed to the present part of our subject, ap- 

^oodhouse, Dr. (Amer. Nat. vii, 1873, p, 326.). 
2 Henshaw, H. W. Rept. Geogr. and Geol. Expl. and Surv. West of the 
100th meridian. 1875. Chap. III. The Ornith. Coll. 1871-1874, p. 435. 



82 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

peared several years ago from the pen of that 
very excellent naturalist, the late Judge Caton of 
Chicago. This contribution is rather a long one, 
and I shall only select such paragraphs from it 
as are of special value in the present connection. 1 
It is a well-known fact that the author of this 
work made a long series of observations on wild 
turkeys which he kept in confinement. He 
raised many from the eggs of the wild turkey 
taken in nature and hatched out by the common 
hen on his own preserves. At one time he had as 
many as sixty such birds, and he lost no oppor- 
tunity to study their habits. They were of the 
pure stock with all their characters as in the wild 
form. These turkeys became very tame when 
thus raised from the eggs of the wild birds, and 
they did not deteriorate, either in size or in their 
power of reproduction. "This magnificent 
game bird," says Caton, "was never a native of 
the Pacific Coast. I have at various times sent 
in all about forty to California, in the hope that 



'Caton, J. D. "The Wild Turkey and Its Domestication." Amer. 
Nat. xi, No. 6, 1877, pp. 321-330, also Ibid, vii, 1873, where this author 
states that "The vision of the wild turkey is very acute but the sense of 
smell is very dull." (p. 431.) 



THE TURKEY HISTORIC 83 

it may be acclimatized in the forests. Their 
numerous enemies have thus far prevented suc- 
cess in this direction, but they have done reason- 
ably well in domestication, and Captain Rodgers 
of the United States Coast Survey has met with 
remarkable success in hybridizing them with the 
domestic bronze turkey. Last spring I sent 
some which were placed on Santa Clara Island, 
off Santa Barbara. They remained contentedly 
about the ranch building and, as I am informed, 
raised three broods of young which are doing 
well. As there is nothing on the island more 
dangerous to them than a very small species of 
fox, we may well hope that they will in a few 
years stock the whole island, which is many 
miles in extent. As the island is uninhabited 
except by the shepherds who tend the immense 
flocks of sheep there, they will soon revert to the 
wild state, when I have no doubt they will re- 
sume markings as constant as is observed in the 
wild bird here, but I shall be disappointed if the 
changed condition of life does not produce a 
change of color or in the shades of color, which 
would induce one unacquainted with their his- 



84 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

tory to pronounce them specifically different 
from their wild ancestors here. Results will be 
watched with interest. 

"My experiments in crossing the wild with the 
tame have been eminently successful." (Fol- 
lowed by a long account, p. 329.) 

"My experiments establish first that the tur- 
key may be domesticated, and that each suc- 
ceeding generation bred in domestication loses 
something of the wild disposition of its ancestors. 

"Second, that the wild turkey bred in do- 
mestication changes its form and the color of its 
plumage and of its legs, each succeeding genera- 
tion degenerating more and more from these 
brilliant colors which are so constant on the wild 
turkey of the forest, so that it is simply a question 
of time — and indeed a very short time — when 
they will lose all of their native wildness and be- 
come clothed in all the varied colors of the com- 
mon domestic turkey; in fact be like our domestic 
turkey, — yes, be our domestic turkey. 

"Third, that the wild turkey and the domestic 
turkey as freely interbred as either does with its 
own variety, showing not the least sexual aver- 



THE TURKEY HISTORIC 85 

sion always observed between animals of different 
species of the same genus, and that the hybrid 
progeny is as vigorous, as robust, and fertile as 
was either parent. 

"It must be already apparent that I, at least, 
have no doubt that our common domestic turkey 
is a direct descendant of the wild turkey of our 
forests, and that therefore there is ho specific dif- 
ference between them. If such marked changes 
in the wild turkey occur by only ten years 
of domestication, all directly tending to the 
form, habits, and colorings of the domestic 
turkey, — in all things which distinguish the do- 
mestic from the wild turkey, — what might we 
not expect from fifty or a hundred years of do- 
mestication? I know that the best ornitho- 
logical authority at the present time declares 
them to be of a different species, but I submit 
that this is a question which should be recon- 
sidered in the light of indisputable facts which 
were not admitted or established at the time such 
decision was made. 

"There has always been diffused among the 
domestic turkeys of the frontiers more or less of 



86 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

the blood of the wild turkey of the neighboring 
forests, and as the wild turkey has been driven 
back by the settlement of the country, the do- 
mestic turkey has gradually lost the markings 
which told of the presence of the wild; though 
judicious breeding has preserved and rendered 
more or less constant some of this evidence in 
what is called the domestic bronze turkey, as the 
red leg and the tawny shade dashed upon the 
white terminals of the tail feathers and the tail- 
coverts, the better should the stock be considered, 
because it is the more like its wild ancestor. 

"That the domestic turkey in its neighborhood 
may be descended from or largely interbred with 
the wild turkey of New Mexico, which in its wild 
state more resembles the common domestic tur- 
key than our wild turkey does, may unquestion- 
ably be true, and it may be also that the wild 
turkey there has a large infusion of the tame 
blood, for it is known that not only our domes- 
tic turkey, but even our barnyard fowls, relapse 
to the wild state in a single generation when 
they are reared in the woods and entirely away 
from the influence of man, gradually assuming 



THE TURKEY HISTORIC 87 

uniform and constant colorings. But I will not 
discuss the question whether the Mexican wild 
turkey is of a different species from ours or 
merely a variety of the same species, only with 
differences in color which have arisen from ac- 
cidental causes, and certainly I will not question 
that the Mexican turkey is the parent of many 
domestic turkeys, but I cannot resist the con- 
clusion that our wild turkey is the progenitor of 
our domestic turkey." 

We have now come to where we can study the 
eggs of these birds, and in the same article I 
have just quoted so extensively from, Judge 
Caton says on page 324 of it, "The eggs of the 
wild turkey vary much in coloring and somewhat 
in form, but in general are so like those of the 
tame turkey that no one can select one from the 
other. The ground color is white, over which 
are scattered reddish-brown specks. These dif- 
fer in shades of color, but much more in numbers. 
I have seen some on which scarcely any specks 
could be detected, while others were profusely 
covered with specks, all laid by the same hen in 
the same nest. The turkey eggs are more pointed 



88 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

than those of the goose or the barnyard fowl, 
and are much smaller in proportion to the size 
of the bird." 

This, in the main, is a fair description of the 
eggs of Meleagris, while at the same time it may 
be said that the ground color is not always 
"white," nor the markings exactly what might 
be denominated "specks." 

Turkey eggs of all kinds, laid by hens of the 
wild as well as by those of the domesticated 
birds, have been described and figured in a great 
many popular and technically scientific books 
and other works, in this country as well as 
abroad. A large part of this literature I have 
examined, but I soon became convinced of the 
fact that no general description would begin to 
stand for the different kinds of eggs that turkeys 
lay. They not only differ in size, form, and mark- 
ings, but in ground colors, numbers to the clutch, 
and some other particulars. Then it is true that 
no wild turkey hen, of any of the known sub- 
species or species of this country, has ever laid an 
egg but what some hen of the domestic breeds 
somewhere has not laid one practically exactly 



THE TURKEY HISTORIC 89 

like it in all particulars. In other words, the eggs 
of our various breeds of tame turkeys are like the 
eggs of the several forms of the wild bird, that is, 
the subspecies known to science in the United 
States avifauna. Therefore I have not thought 
it necessary to present here any descriptions of 
the eggs of the tame turkeys or reproductions of 
photographs of the same. 

Among the most beautiful of the wild turkey 
eggs published are those which appear in Major 
Bendire's work. They were drawn and painted 
by Mr. John L. Ridgway of the United States 
Geological Survey. 1 These very eggs I have not 
only examined, studied and compared, but, 
thanks to Dr. Richmond of the Division of Birds 
of the Museum, and to Mr. J. H. Riley, his 
assistant, I had such specimens as I needed 
loaned me from the general collection of the Mu- 
seum, in that I might photograph them for use 
in the present connection. Dr. Richmond did 
me a special kindness in selecting for my study 
the four eggs here reproduced from my photo- 

x Bendire, Charles, "Life Histories of North American Birds with 
Special Reference to Their Breeding Habits and Eggs." Washington, 
Govmt. Printing Office, 1892. 



90 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

graph of them in Plate VI. These are all of M. 
g. silvestris. 

Of these, figures 20 and 21 are from the same 
clutch, and doubtless laid by the same bird. 
(Nos. 30014, 30014.) They were collected by 
J. H. Riley at Falls Church, Va. Figure 20 is an 
egg measuring 66 mm. x 45 mm., the color being 
a pale buff y -brown, finely and nearly evenly 
speckled all over with umber-brown, with very 
minute specks to dots measuring a millimetre in 
diameter. The finest speckling, with no larger 
spots, is at the greater end (butt) for a third of 
the egg. 

Figure 21 measures 63 mm. x 45 mm. , the ground 
color being a pale cream, speckled somewhat 
thickly and uniformly all over with fine specks of 
light brown and lavender, with larger spots and 
ocellated marks of lavender moderately abun- 
dant over the middle and the apical thirds, with 
none about the larger end or remaining third. 
Figure 22 (Plate VI) is No. 31185 of the collection 
of the U. S. National Museum (ex Ralph Coll.) ; it 
was collected at Bridgeport, Michigan, by Allan 
Herbert (376, 4700, '77) and measures 68 x 46. 



Plate VI 




Eggs of wild turkey (M. g. sihestris) 
Names and descriptions given in the text. All the specimens photo natural size by 
Dr. Shufeldt and somewhat reduced in reproduction. Fig. 20. Upper left-hand one. Fig. 
21. Upper right-hand one. Fig. 22. Lower left-hand one. Fig. 23. Lower right-hand one. 



THE TURKEY HISTORIC 91 

It is of a rather deep buffy -brown or ochre, very 
thickly and quite uniformly speckled all over 
with more or less minute specks of dark brown. 

Figure 23 was collected by H. R. Caldwell 
(91310), the locality being unrecorded (Coll. 
U. S. Nat. Museum, No. 32407), and measures 
63 x 48. It is of a pale buffy -brown or pale cafe 
mi lait color, quite thickly speckled all over with 
fine dots and specks of light brown. Some few 
of the specks are of noticeably larger size, and 
these are confined to the middle and apical 
thirds. Speckling of the butt or big end ex- 
tremely fine, and the specks of lighter color. 

Referring to the wild turkey (M. g. silvestris) 
Bendire says (loc. cit., p. 116): "In shape, the 
eggs of the Wild Turkey are usually ovate, oc- 
casionally they are elongate ovate. The ground 
color varies from pale creamy white to creamy 
buff. They are more or less heavily marked 
with well-defined spots and dots of pale choco- 
late and reddish brown. In an occasional set 
these spots are pale lavender. Generally the 
markings are all small, ranging in size from a No. 
6 shot to that of dust shot, but an exceptional 



92 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

set is sometimes heavily covered with both spots 
and blotches of the size of buckshot, and even 
larger. The majority of eggs of this species in 
the U. S. National Museum collection, and such 
as I have examined elsewhere, resemble in color- 
ation the figured type of M. gallopavo mexicanus, 
but average, as a rule, somewhat smaller in size. 

"The average measurement of thirty-eight 
eggs in the U. S. National Museum collection is 
61.5 by 46.5 millimetres. The largest egg meas- 
ures 68.5 by 46, the smallest 59 by 45 milli- 
metres." 

At the close of his account of M. g. mexicanus 
Bendire states that "The only eggs of this 
species in the U. S. National Museum collection, 
about whose identity there can be no possible 
doubt, were collected on Upper Lynx Creek, 
Arizona, in the spring of 1870, by Dr. E. Palmer, 
whose name is well known as one of the pioneer 
naturalists of that Territory. 

"The eggs are ovate in shape, their ground 
color is creamy white, and they are profusely 
dotted with fine spots of reddish brown, pretty 
evenly distributed over the entire egg. The 



THE TURKEY HISTORIC 93 

average measurements of these eggs is 69 by 49 
millimetres. The largest measures 70.5 by 49, 
the smallest 67 by 48 millimetres. 

"The type specimen (No. 15573, U. S. National 
Museum collection, PL 3, Fig. 15) is one of the 
set referred to above" (loc. cit. p. 119). 

This set of three eggs I have personally studied; 
they are of M . g. merriami, and I find them to 
agree exactly with Captain Bendire's description 
just quoted. 1 

In the Ralph Collection (U. S. Nat. Mus. 
No. 27232; orig. No. 10/6) I examined six (6) 
eggs of M . g. intermedia. They are of a pale 
ground color, all being uniformly speckled over 
with minute dots of lightish brown. These eggs 
are rather large for turkey eggs. They were 
collected at Brownsville, Texas, May 26, 1894. 

Another set of M. g. intermedia collected by 
F. B. Armstrong (No. 25765, coll. U. S. Nat. 
Mus.) are practically unspotted, and such spots 
as are to be found are very faint, both the mi- 
nute and the somewhat large ones. 

'Some of the English books contain descriptions of the eggs of our 
wild turkeys, as for example "A Handbook to the Game-birds." By 
W. R. Ogilvie-Grant. (Lloyd's Nat. Hist.) London, 1897, pp. 103-111. 



94 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

In Dr. Ralph's collection (U. S. Nat. Mus. No. 
27080) eggs of M. g. intermedia are short, with the 
large and fine dots of a pale orange yellow. I ex- 
amined a number of eggs and sets of eggs of M. 
g. osceola, or Florida turkey. In No. 25787 the 
eggs are short and broad, the ground color being 
pale whitish, slightly tinged with brown. Some 
of the spots on these eggs are unusually large, 
in a few places, three or four running together, 
or are more or less confluent; others are isolated 
and of medium size; many are minute, all being 
of an earth brown, varying in shades. In the 
case of No. 25787 of this set, the dark-brown 
spots are more or less of a size and fewer in 
number; while one of them (No. 25787) is exactly 
like the egg of Plate VI, Fig. 22; finally, there is a 
pale one (No. 25787) with fine spots, few in num- 
ber in middle third, very numerous at the ends. 
There are scattered large spots of a dark brown, 
the surface of each of which latter are raised with 
a kind of incrustation. Another egg (No. 27869) 
in the same tray (M. g. osceola) is small, pointed ; 
pale ground color with very fine spots of light 
brown (coll. W. L. Ralph). Still another in 



THE TURKEY HISTORIC 95 

this set (No. 27868) is markedly roundish, with 
minute brown speckling uniformly distributed. 
There are nine (9) eggs in this clutch (No. 27868), 
and apart from the differences in form, they all 
closely resemble each other; and this is by no 
means always the case, as the same hen may lay 
any of the various styles enumerated above, 
either as belonging to the same clutch, or at dif- 
ferent seasons. 

As it is not the plan of the author of the present 
work to touch, in this chapter, upon the general 
habits of wild turkeys — their courtship, their 
incubation, the young at various stages, nest- 
ing sites, and a great deal more having to do 
with the natural history of the family and 
the forms contained in it — it would seem 
that what has been set forth above in regard 
to the eggs of the several subspecies in our 
avifauna pretty thoroughly covers this part of 
the subject. 

Shortly after the last paragraph was com- 
pleted I received a valuable photograph of the 
nest and eggs of M . g. merriami, and this I desire 
to publish here with a few notes, although in so 



96 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

doing it constitutes a departure from what I 
have just stated above in regard to the nests of 
Turkeys. 

This photograph was kindly furnished me by 
my friend Mr. F. Stephens of the Society of Nat- 
ural History of San Diego, California, with per- 
mission to use it in the present connection. It 
has not to my knowledge been published before, 
though the existence of the negative from which 
it was printed has been made known to ornitholo- 
gists by Major Bendire, who says, in his account 
of the "Mexican Turkey" in his Life Histories of 
North American Birds (loc. cit. p. 118): "That 
well-known ornithologist and collector, Mr. F. 
Stephens, took a probably incomplete set of 
nine fresh eggs of this species, on June 15th, 1884. 
He writes me: 'I was encamped about five miles 
south of Craterville, on the east side of the Santa 
Rita Mountains in Arizona; the nest was shown 
to my assistant by a charcoal burner. On his 
approach to it the bird ran off or flew before he 
got within good range. He did not disturb it 
but came to camp, and in the afternoon we both 
went, and I took my little camera along and 



THE TURKEY HISTORIC 97 

photographed it. The bird did not show up 
again. The locality was on the east slope of the 
Santa Rita Mountains, in the oak timber, just 
where the first scattering pines commenced, at 
an altitude of perhaps 5000 feet.' 

"A good photograph, kindly sent me by Mr. 
Stephens, shows the nest and eggs plainly. It 
was placed close to the trunk of an oak tree on a 
hillside, near which a good-size yucca grew, 
covering, apparently, a part of the nest; the 
hollow in which the eggs were placed was 
about 12 inches across and 3 inches deep. 
Judging from the photograph the nest was 
fairly well lined." 

In order to complete my share of the work, I 
will now add here a few paragraphs and illustra- 
tions upon the skeletal differences to be found 
upon comparison of that part of the anatomy of 
wild and domesticated turkeys. This is a sub- 
ject I wrote upon many years ago; what I then 
said I have just read over, and I find I can 
do no better than quote the part contained in 
the "Analytical Summary" of the work. It is 
more or less technical and therefore must be 



98 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

brief, though it is none the less necessary to com- 
plete the subject of the present treatise. 1 

1. As a rule, in adult specimens of M . g. mer- 
riami, the posterior margins of the nasal bones 
indistinguishably fuse with the frontals ; whereas, 
as a rule, in domesticated turkeys these sutural 
traces persist with great distinctness throughout 
life. 

2. As a rule, in wild turkeys we find the cran- 
iofrontal region more concaved and wider across 
than it is in the tame varieties. 

3. The parietal prominences are apt to be 
more evident in M . g. merriami than they are in 
the vast majority of domesticated turkeys; and 
the median longitudinal line measured from these 
to the nearest point of the occipital ridge is longer 
in the tame varieties than it is in the wild birds. 
Generally speaking, this latter character is very 
striking and rarely departed from. 

4. The figure formed by the line which bounds 



'Shufeldt, R. W. "Osteology of Birds," Education Dept. Bull. 
No. 447, Albany, N. Y., May 15, 1909. N. Y. State Mus. Bull. 130, 
pp. 222-224; based upon a former contribution which appeared in The 
Journal of Comparative Medicine and Surgery, July, 1887, entitled "A 
Critical Comparison of a Series of Skulls of the Wild and Domesticated 
Turkeys." (Meleagris gallopavo silvestris and M. domestica.) 



THE TURKEY HISTORIC 99 

the occipital area is, as a rule, roughly semi- 
circular in a domesticated turkey, whereas in 
M. g. merriami it is nearly always of a cordate 
outline, with the apex upward. In the case of 
the tame turkeys I have found it to average one 
exception to this in every twelve birds; in the 
exception, the bounding line of the area made a 
cordate figure as in wild turkeys. 

5. Among the domesticated turkeys, the in- 
terorbital septum almost invariably is pierced 
by a large irregular vacuity ; as a rule this osseous 
plate is entire in wild ones. 

6. The descending process of a lacrymal 
bone is more apt to be longer in a wild turkey 
than in a tame one; and for the average the 
greater length is always in favor of the former 
species. 

7. In M . g. merriami the arch of the superior 
margin of the orbit is more decided than it is in 
the tame turkey, where the arc formed by this 
line is shallowed, and not so elevated. 

8. We find, as a rule, that the pterygoid bones 
are rather longer and more slender in wild tur- 
keys than they are among the tame ones. 



100 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

9. At the occipital region of the skull, the 
osseous structures are denser and thicker in the 
tame varieties of turkeys; and, as a whole, the 
skull is smoother, with its salient apophyses less 
pronounced in them than in the wild types. 
There is a certain delicacy and lightness, very 
difficult to describe, that stamps the skull of a 
wild turkey, and at once distinguishes it from any 
typical skull of a tame one. 

10. I have predicted that the average size of 
the brain cavity will be found to be smaller and 
of less capacity in a tame turkey than it is in the 
wild one. In the case of this class of domesti- 
cated birds, as pointed out above, this would 
seem to be no more than natural, for the do- 
mestication of the turkey has not been of such a 
nature as to develop its brain mass through the 
influences of a species of education; its long con- 
tact with man has taught it nothing — quite 
the contrary, for the bird has been almost en- 
tirely relieved from the responsibilities of using 
its wits to obtain its food, or to guard against 
danger to itself. These factors are still in op- 
eration in the case of the wild types, and the 



THE TURKEY HISTORIC 101 

advance of civilization has tended to sharpen 
them. 

From this point of view, then, I would say that 
mentally the average wild turkey is stronger 
than the average domesticated one, and I believe 
it will be found that in all these long years the 
above influences have affected the size of the 
brain-mass of the latter species in the way above 
indicated, and perhaps it may be possible some 
day to appreciate this difference. Perhaps, too, 
there may have been also a slight tendency on 
the part of the brain of the wild turkey to in- 
crease in size, owing to the demands made upon 
its functions due to the influence of man 's nearer 
approach, and the necessity of greater mental 
activity in consequence. 

Recently I examined a mounted skeleton of 
a female wild turkey in the collection of the 
United States National Museum, and apart from 
the skull it presented the following characters: 
There were fifteen vertebrae, the last one having a 
pair of free ribs, before we arrived at the fused 
vertebrae of the dorsum. Of these latter there 
were three coossified into one piece. 



102 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

The sixteenth vertebra supports a pair of free 
ribs that fail to meet the sternum, there being no 
costal ribs for them. They bear uncinate pro- 
cesses. 

Next we find four pairs of ribs that articulate 
with hsemapophyses, and through them with the 
sternum. There are two free vertebrae between 
the consolidated dorsal ones and the pelvis; and 
the pelvis bears a pair of free ribs, the costal ribs 
of which articulate by their anterior ends with 
the posterior border of the pair of costal ribs in 
front of them. 

A kind of long abutment exists at the middle 
point on each, there to accommodate the articu- 
lation. There are six free tail vertebra? plus a 
long pointed pygostyle. The os furcula is rather 
slender, being of a typical V-shaped pattern, 
with a small and straight hypocleidium. With 
a form much as we find it in the fowl, the pelvis 
is characterized by not having the ilia meet the 
sacral crista in front. The prepubis is short and 
stumpy. The external pair of xiphoidal pro- 
cesses of the sternum are peculiar in that their 
posterior ends are strongly bifurcated. 




Fig. 24. Nest of a wild turkey in situ. (M. g. merriami.) Photo by 
Mr. F. Stephens, San Diego, California. 



THE TURKEY HISTORIC 10J 

In the skeleton of the manus, the pollex meta- 
carpal projects forward and upward as a rather 
conspicuous process. Its phalanx does not bear 
a claw, and on the index metacarpal the indicial 
process is present and overlaps the shaft of the 
next metacarpal behind it. In the leg the fibula 
is free, and extends halfway down the tibiotarsal 
shaft. 

The hypotarsus of the tarso-metatarsus is 
grooved mesially for the passage of tendons be- 
hind, and is also once perforated near its middle 
for the same purpose. As I have already stated, 
the remainder of the skeleton of this bird is char- 
acteristically gallinaceous and need not detain us 
longer here. I would add, however, that the 
"tarsal cartilages" in the turkey extensively 
ossify. 



CHAPTER V 

BREAST SPONGE — SHREWDNESS 

NrATURE has provided the old gobbler 
with a very useful appendage. Audubon 
calls it the " breast sponge, " and it covers 
the entire upperpartof the breast and crop-cavity. 
This curious arrangement consists of a thick mass 
of cellular tissue, and its purpose is to act as a 
reservoir to hold surplus oil or fat. It is quite 
interesting to study its function, and it is a very 
important one for the gobbler. This appendage 
is not found on the hen or yearling gobbler. At 
the beginning of the gobbling season, about 
March 1st, this breast sponge is full of rich, sweet 
fat, and the gobbler is plump in flesh; but as the 
season advances and he continues to gobble, 
strut, and worry the hens, his plumpness is re- 
duced, and finally the bird becomes emaciated 
and lean. Often during the whole day he gob- 
bles and struts about, making love to the hens, 

104 



BREAST SPONGE SHREWDNESS 105 

and at this time he eats almost nothing, being 
kept alive largely by drawing on his reservoir of 
fat. As the gobbler begins to grow lean, his 
flesh becomes rank and wholly unfit for food, and 
one should never be killed at this time. It is a 
fact that the young male turkeys gobble but sel- 
dom, if at all, the first year. Neither do these 
young birds possess the breast sponge, or reser- 
voir to hold fat, and consequently they are unfit 
to mate with the hens. The hens visit the males 
every day or alternate days; consequently, if 
among the gobblers there are no mature birds, 
the eggs laid are not fertile. I wish every hunter, 
sportsman, and farmer could read these lines, 
and recognize the importance of sparing at least 
one of the adult male turkeys in each locality. 
The benefit of such a policy would soon be ap- 
parent in the increase of the turkeys. I dwell 
at length on this point in order to make clear the 
necessity of sparing some old gobblers in each 
section. 

It has frequently been stated that the wild 
turkey will not live and propagate within the 
haunts of man. This depends upon how the 



106 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

birds are treated. No bird or animal can sur- 
vive eternal persecution. There is no trouble 
about the birds thriving in a settled community, 
if the proper territory is set apart for their 
use, and proper protection given. The territory 
should consist of a few acres of woodland, or of 
some broken ground, thicket, or swamp to afford 
a little cover. In such a retreat, a trio of wild 
turkeys may be turned loose, and in a few years, 
if properly protected, the vicinity would be 
stocked with them. 

I have ample evidence that wild turkeys will 
not shrink from civilization. It is the trapping, 
snaring, baiting, and killing of all old gobblers 
that decimates their numbers, not the legitimate 
hunting by sportsmen. 

The shrewdness of the turkey is shown by his 
having no fear of the peaceable farmer at the 
plow, no more than the crow or the blackbird 
has. The wild turkey will go into the open 
field and glean food from the stubble or upturned 
furrows in full view of the plowman. This I 
have often seen, and I will cite one incident of 
this kind, which came under my observation 



BREAST SPONGE SHREWDNESS 107 

some time ago when hunting in the State of 
Mississippi. It was a clear, beautiful morning 
in the month of March. Three old turkeys were 
gobbling in different directions, along a creek 
in a swamp, which was about half a mile wide, 
with fields on each side. Having selected the 
one I thought the oldest and biggest, I ap- 
proached it as near as I dared; then, hiding my- 
self in the brush, I began to call. In a short 
time the other two birds quit gobbling and 
came quickly to the call, while the one I had 
chosen continued his gobbling, but in the same 
place as when first heard. Suddenly I heard 
"Put-put" directly behind me; turning my head, 
I saw, within twenty paces of me, a fine gobbler. 
"Put" — then he was gone. This caused the 
one gobbling in front of me to become suspicious. 
He refused to come an inch nearer, and, having 
heard that alarm, "put," he began to make a 
detour in order to gain a certain heavily 
wooded ridge. To do this, without getting too 
near the spot where he heard the warning cry of 
his comrade, he had to go over a high rail fence, 
going through a part of the field just plowed up, 



108 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

while the plowman was there at work in his 
shirt sleeves, not over one hundred yards away 
and in full view of the gobbler. The man was 
moving all the time and frequently holloaing to 
his mules, "Whoa," "Gee," or "Haw," in such a 
loud voice that one could hear him a long dis- 
tance. The turkey would gobble every time 
the plowman would holloa. He appeared to be 
perfectly fearless of the plowman, but was em- 
ploying all his sagacity to avoid the spot where I 
was. I could not understand this at first, but 
discovered the reason a little later. The bird 
had reached the field and was flanking me, but I 
could not see it on account of the undergrowth. 
I rose, and by making a detour of about two 
hundred yards around the angle of the field, 
keeping well in the woods, I finally discovered 
the gobbler striding sedately across the field 
between me and the plowman, who was busily 
engaged in attending to his furrows, still loudly 
holloaing from time to time. The gobbler at 
intervals stopped, strutted, gobbled, and then 
proceeded on its way. Seeing that I could get 
no nearer to him, I waited until he was about 



BREAST SPONGE — SHREWDNESS 109 

to cross the fence, when I dropped by a stump, 
lifted my rifle, and waited for him to mount the 
fence. This he was some time in doing, but I fi- 
nally heard the flop, flop, when his fine form with 
long, pendent beard was seen broadside on by me 
on the top rail, about eighty-five yards away. In 
a second the bead of my rifle covered the spot at 
the wing, and, as I fired, the bird tumbled dead 
into the field. It was a grand old specimen, and 
on examining it dry blood was discovered where 
a buckshot had passed through its leg. There 
was another shot across the rump, and a third 
had creased the back of the neck near the head. 
In my opinion, the bird hearing the "put-put" 
of the gobbler who came up behind me suspected 
a hidden enemy, and, having lately been wounded, 
thought it best to give suspicious places a wide 
berth. 

There are thousands of acres in the South 
which were once cultivated, but which are now 
abandoned and growing up with timber, brush, 
and grass. Such country affords splendid op- 
portunity for the rearing and perpetuation of the 
wild turkey. These lands are vastly superior for 



110 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

this purpose than are the solid primeval forests, 
inasmuch as they afford a great variety of sum- 
mer food, such as green, tender herbage, berries 
of many kind, grasshoppers by the million, and 
other insects in which the turkeys delight. Such 
a country also affords good nesting retreats, with 
brier-patches and straw where the nest may 
be safely hidden, and where the young birds may 
secure safe hiding places from animals and birds 
of prey; but alas! at present not from trappers, 
baiters, and pot hunters. Check these, and the 
abandoned plantations of the South would soon 
be alive with turkeys. 



CHAPTER VI 

SOCIAL RELATIONS NESTING THE YOUNG 

BIRDS 

THE wild turkey differs in its domestic 
relations from the majority of birds, 
for it does not take one partner or 
companion, or pair off in the spring, as do most 
gallinaceous birds. Charles Hallock has stated 
that turkeys pair off in the spring. I beg to 
differ with Mr. Hallock. The male turkey does 
not confine himself to one mate. 

He is a veritable Mormon or Turk, polyga- 
mous in the extreme, and desires above all 
a well-filled harem. He cares not a bit for 
the rearing or training of his family; in fact, it 
has been alleged that he follows his mates to 
their nests and destroys and eats the eggs. This 
I do not believe, nor will I accuse him of such 
conduct. He is a vain bird and craves admira- 
tion, and acts as if he were a royal prince and a 

in 



112 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

genuine dude, and he will have admiration though 
it costs him his life. He is a gay Lothario and will 
covet and steal his neighbors' wives and daugh- 
ters ; and if his neighbors protest, will fight to the 
finish. He is artful, cunning, and sly, at the 
same time a stupendous fool. One day no art 
can persuade him to approach you, no matter 
how persuasively or persistently you call; the 
next day he will walk boldly up to the gun at 
the first call and be shot. He has no senti- 
ment beyond a dudish and pompous admiration 
for himself, and he covets every hen he sees. 
He will stand for hours in a small sunny place, 
striving to attract the attention of the hens by 
strutting, gobbling, blowing, and whining, until 
he nearly starves to death. I believe he would 
almost rather be dead than to have a cloudy day, 
when he is deprived of seeing the sun shining 
on his glossy plumage; and if it rains, he is the 
most disconsolate creature on the face of the 
earth. 

The methods employed by the wild turkey 
hen in nesting and rearing a family do not differ 
materially from those of the tame turkey. The 



SOCIAL RELATIONS — NESTING 113 

nest itself is a simple affair, fashioned as if made 
in a hurry, and consists of a depression scratched 
in the earth to fit her body comfortably, then a few 
dry leaves are scratched in to line the excavation. 
Again, the nest may be under an old fallen tree- 
top or tussock of tall grass, or beside an old log, 
against which sundry brush, leaves, and grass 
have drifted, or in an open stubble field or 
prairie. There is one precaution the hen never 
neglects, however slovenly the nest is built ; this 
is to completely cover her eggs with leaves or 
grass on leaving the nest. This is done to protect 
them from predaceous beasts and birds, partic- 
ularly from that ubiquitous thief and villain, 
the crow. 

The eggs, usually from eight to fifteen in num- 
ber, are quite pointed at one end, a little smaller 
than the eggs of the domesticated turkey, show- 
ing considerable variation in size and shape. In 
color they are uniform cream, sometimes yellow- 
ish, and, when quite fresh, with a decided pink 
cast, spotted and blotched all over with reddish 
brown and sometimes lilac. 

The period of incubation is four weeks. On 



114 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

its first appearance the young wild turkey is 
covered with a suit of light gray fluffy down, 
dotted with dusky spots, and with two dusky 
stripes froriLthe top of the head, down the sides 
of the bac&to the rump; but this is soon replaced 
by a coveftmg of deciduous feathers, and this 
in turn by^tlie permanent suit at molting in 
August and September. The first crop of feath- 
ers which takes the place of the down grow very 
rapidly, assuming in their maturity the precise 
shape and color of the subsequent and perma- 
nent growth, and at three months the turkey is 
in appearance the same as one of nine months. 
The young bird of two or three pounds weight 
has the same outline of form as the yearling, but 
the little fellow in down bears a striking resem- 
blance to a young ostrich. The deciduous 
feathers mature quickly, and the quill-ends dry 
before the young bird is a quarter grown; hence 
the feathers grow no more. But the bird grows 
until molting-time arrives, when the young fowl, 
if a gobbler, will weigh from seven to nine pounds. 
The molting season comes on apace, and the bird 
is out of humor; for its clothes, as it were, do not 



SOCIAL RELATIONS NESTING 115 

fit, the mosquitoes and ticks bite it, and the de- 
ciduous quills of the wings begin to get loose and 
drop out, one at a time at long intervals, so that 
some feathers are growing while others-are falling. 
This is also true of the body covering. The 
tail becomes snaggled and awry, and at the time 
the young turkey presents anything but a pleasing 
appearance. The molting begins in August, and 
it is the last of December before the full second 
suit of feathers is completed. It is the irregular 
growth of the feathers that often deceives the 
hunter as to the age of the fowl. Once a friend of 
mine and I, after a morning's hunt, stopped to rest 
and got into our boat. He had three fine tur- 
keys, the time being early in November, and 
he remarked that he wished he had killed at least 
one gobbler to put with his hens. On examina- 
tion I showed him that two of his three were 
young gobblers and the third an old hen, although 
the birds were about the same size and the plu- 
mage almost identical. 

The tuft or beard does not appear on the 
young gobbler even in the Southern climate until 
late in October or November, nor have I known 



116 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

them to gobble or strut at this early age, al- 
though the tame ones sometimes do. The gob- 
bler's beard grows quite rapidly until the end of 
the third year, and then slowly until eleven or 
twelve inches long, when it seems to stop. It 
may be owing to its wearing off at the lower end 
by dragging on the ground while feeding; but a 
close inspection will not substantiate this, for the 
hairs at the extreme end of the beard are blunt 
and rounding, and do not indicate wear from 
friction. The young gobbler's beard is two 
inches long by the end of November of the first 
year of his life. By March it is three inches long 
and stands out of the feathers one inch. At the 
end of the second year is it five inches long, and 
at three years about eight inches long. 

Hens have beards only in rare cases, but not 
in one out of a hundred will a hen be found with 
one and then never more than four inches 
long. I have seen gobblers with two or three 
beards, and one at Eagle Lake, Texas, with five 
separate, long and distinct beards; but such 
cases are freaks. I once called up and killed a 
turkey hen on the banks of the Trinity River, in 




Hen, wild turkey, and three young. On account of the extreme shyness 
of the mother, young turkeys are very hard to photograph 



SOCIAL RELATIONS NESTING 117 

Texas, which was covered with precisely the same 
bronze feathers that distinguish the gobbler — 
the same thick, velvety black satin breast, and 
the same beautifully decorated neck and head, 
except the white turban cap of the gobbler. She 
had a five-inch beard and looked in every way 
like a gobbler, except being smaller in size. She 
weighed twelve pounds and had the form of the 
hen, the legs of a hen, and was a hen, but the 
most gaudy and beautiful specimen I ever saw. 
Possibly this was a barren hen, as she had all 
the visible characteristics of the male, but she 
did not gobble, she yelped. 

The parasite which troubles the turkey is 
much larger than those which infest chickens. 
It is yellow in color and crawls rapidly. Tur- 
keys have a habit of rolling themselves in dust 
and ashes to remove vermin from the skin and 
feathers; but I believe a bath of dry wood ashes, 
where an old log or stump has been burned, is 
preferred by them on account of the cleansing 
effect of the ashes. 

When the young turkeys are four or five 
months old they are fairly independent of their 



118 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HTJNTIhU 

mother, and become quite self-reliant, so far as 
roosting, feeding, and flying into trees is con- 
cerned. They are not, however, entirely inde- 
pendent of their mother's care until fully grown, 
but usually the entire brood remains under her 
guidance more or less until December or Jan- 
uary. At this time the young males begin to 
follow the ways of the old gobbler, separating 
from the females and going in bands by them- 
selves; therefore there are at this time three 
classes of turkeys socially (if I may use the 
term) in the same district. These flocks will 
incidentally meet, and will feed and scratch to- 
gether for an hour or so ; they then separate into 
their respective classes and disappear in different 
directions with great system and little adr 



CHAPTER VII 

ASSOCIATION OF SEXES 

ONCE I saw fifteen gobblers feeding in 
a hollow between two ridges. I dis- 
mounted from my horse, crawling to 
the brow of the hill in order that I might peep 
over and have a good look at them. I had 
no gun with me at the time, so I lay upon 
the ground and watched the turkeys feeding 
and scratching for about two hours. They were 
apparently all of one flock; but finally a party 
of nine, all of which were old gobblers, having 
long beards that trailed upon the ground as 
they fed, withdrew in one direction, while the 
other six, which were young or yearling gobblers 
and beardless, departed in another direction. 
This was done without any signal that I could 
discern. A few days later, as I was passing the 
same place with my rifle, I found, right on the 
identical spot, the same fifteen gobblers, nine old 

119 



120 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

ones and six young ones, scratching and feeding 
as before. They soon began to feed away from 
me, and as I saw they were to pass over a ridge, 
I fired at the nearest, which was about one hun- 
dred and twenty-five yards away, tumbling him 
over, and 'the rest of the flock ran away. Two 
weeks after this incident I was driving in the 
same woods for deer. The hounds flushed one 
detachment of this flock of turkeys (the nine old 
gobblers), which took refuge in the trees; and 
my brother, who was on a stand near where they 
lit, shot two of the turkeys as they perched in the 
tall pines within rifle shot of him. These birds 
were noble fellows, weighing twenty-one pounds 
each, and they were fat. This was in January. 

As shown, the young gobbler will occasionally 
associate with the old ones, but he seldom re- 
mains long in their company. Why this is 
so I do not know, as I have never known 
them to quarrel, jostle, fight, or disagree in 
any way. I have come to the conclusion that 
the cause of the separation must be the want 
of congeniality between old age and youth. 
This division and separation into classes em- 



ASSOCIATION OF SEXES 121, 

braces about three months, December, Janu- 
ary, and February, and part of March. The 
hens are more sociable and gregarious in their 
ways than the males, collecting in immense 
flocks. The flocks of the gobblers are seldom 
more than fifteen or twenty, while I have seen 
from thirty to seventy -five hens in a single flock 
in which there was not a single male. I imagine 
the greater size of the flocks containing females 
to be on account of the gobblers being killed 
in far greater numbers than the hens. Just 
before the time of the final separation of the 
sexes, the young males, their sisters, their 
mothers, and other old hens that have lost 
their broods, associate in a very sociable manner, 
traveling and roosting together. Audubon says : 
"The turkey is irregularly migratory, as well 
as irregularly gregarious. In relation to the 
first of these circumstances, I have to state that 
whenever the mast in one part of the country 
happens to exceed that of another, the turkeys 
are insensibly led to that spot by gradually 
meeting in their haunts with more fruit the 
nearer they advance toward the places of great- 



122 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

est plenty. In this manner flock follows flock 
until one district is entirely deserted while 
another is overflowed by them, but as these mi- 
grations are irregular, and extend over vast ex- 
panse of country, it is necessary that I should 
describe the manner in which they take place. 
About the beginning of October, when scarcely 
any seed and fruit has yet fallen from the trees, 
the birds assemble in flocks and gradually move 
toward the rich bottom lands of the Ohio and 
the Mississippi. The males, or as they are com- 
monly called, gobblers, associate in parties from 
ten to one hundred, and search for food apart 
from the females, while the latter are singly ad- 
vancing, each with its brood about two thirds 
grown, or in connection with other families, 
often amounting to seventy or eighty individuals 
all intent on shunning the old cocks, which, even 
when the young brood have attained this size, 
will fight and often destroy them by repeated 
blows on the head." This last assertion of the 
great author I feel obliged to criticise. In my 
vast experience with the turkey I have never met 
with anything to justify such a statement. I 



ASSOCIATION OF SEXES 123 

have never seen an old gobbler attempt to fight a 
young one, from the egg to maturity. It is 
wholly unnatural from the fact that the old birds 
are never in a bellicose temper except during the 
love season or gobbling time in the spring, when 
jealousies arise from sexual instincts. Not in 
any instance, however, have I known of one 
turkey killing another. I have often seen two old 
gobblers strut up to each other, blow, puff, and 
rub their sides together. I watched, expecting to 
see a crash, but there was not a motion to strike, 
and this was in the love season while there was a 
bevy of hens all around. They do not fight in 
the summer, fall, and winter, but of course now 
and then old gobblers will fight in the beginning 
of the mating season. 

The young broods and their mothers do not 
associate at any time with the old gobblers, ex- 
cept as I have described, neither do they run 
away from them in fear. If all that Audubon 
and other writers say about the wild gobbler 
were believed, he would be universally regarded 
as the most bellicose and brutal villain in the 
bird world ; for, according to various writers, he 



124 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

spends the greater part of his time making war on 
his own kind, besides murdering his tender off- 
spring. Certainly there is no bird more affec- 
tionate to its female under the same condition, 
or more gallant and proud of her company, and 
it does not seem likely that he would wilfully 
destroy in cold blood his own family. 

The old hens that have not succeeded in rais- 
ing a brood of their own will join hens who have, 
and assist in rearing the young. Again, Audu- 
bon says: "When they come upon a river they 
partake themselves to the highest eminence, and 
there often remain a day or two as if in consulta- 
tion. During this time the males are heard gob- 
bling, calling, and making much ado, and are 
seen strutting about as if to raise the courage to a 
pitch before the emergency of crossing." 

I will say in this connection that turkeys may so 
act in rare instances, if the stream be exception- 
ally wide, thus delaying their progress for an hour ; 
for turkeys do not like to fly under any condi- 
tions, nor will they use their wings save when 
necessary. But I have never seen a river that 
they could not easily cross, starting at the 



ASSOCIATION OF SEXES 125 

water's edge, rising as they fly, and alighting 
in the tops of the trees on the opposite bank. 
Mr. J. K. Renaud, of New Orleans, and I, while 
paddling a skiff up a small lake in Alabama, once 
counted a flock of sixteen turkeys flying across 
the lake some distance ahead of us. We noticed 
that they just barely skimmed over the water 
and rose to the top of a higher ridge on the oppo- 
site side, where they alighted, and not even one 
touched the water. This lake was probably three 
hundred yards wide. 

Audubon says: "Even the females and young 
assume something of the pompous demeanor, 
spreading their tails and running around each 
other, purring loudly, and making extravagant 
leaps. I have seen this running round, purring, 
dancing, and 'ring-around a rosy' in the spring, 
but not to any extent at any other time." 

As many of my readers have never had the 
opportunity or pleasure of reading the beautiful 
and expressive lines of Audubon on the wild 
turkey, I will be pardoned if I introduce some 
extracts from this great author. He says: "As 
early as the middle of February they [the tur- 



126 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

keys] begin to experience the impulse of prop- 
agation. The females separate and fly from 
the males. The latter strenuously pursue and 
begin to gobble, or utter the notes of exultation. 
The sexes roost apart, but at no great distance 
from each other. When a female utters a call- 
note, all the gobblers within hearing return the 
sound, rolling note after note with as much 
rapidity as if they intended to emit the last and 
first together, not with the spread tails as when 
fluttering round the hens on the ground, or prac- 
tising on the branches of trees on which they 
have roosted for the night, but much in the 
manner of the domestic turkey when an unusual 
noise elicits its singular hubbub." 

By this he means, when the wild gobbler on the 
roost hears the call of the hen, he gobbles, and 
dances on the limb without strutting, the same 
as the tame gobbler will gobble when hearing a 
shrill whistle or other sudden acute sound, with- 
out evincing any amorous feelings; but it is not 
always so. I have often seen the wild gobbler 
strut on his roost, and I have shot them in such 
an act when in full round strut. 



ASSOCIATION OF SEXES 127 

Audubon also says: "If the call of the hen is 
from the ground, all the males immediately fly 
toward the spot, and the moment they reach 
it, whether the hen be in sight or not, spread out 
and erect their tails, draw the head back on the 
shoulders, depress the wings with a quivering 
motion, and strut pompously about, emitting 
at the same time successions of puffs from their 
lungs, stopping now and then to listen and look, 
but whether they spy females or not, continue 
to puff and strut, moving with as much celerity 
as their ideas of ceremony seem to admit." 

Now, here are some of the greatest errors of 
the great naturalist in all his turkey lore, or else 
the wild turkey gobbler has materially changed 
his ways. The gobblers do not immediately fly 
to the call of the hen, and no turkey hunter of 
experience will admit this. 

There are perhaps instances, extremely rare 
ones though, when a gobbler will fly instantly 
to a hen on hearing her call, or even at sight of 
her. Only in two instances in my life have I 
witnessed it, and on both occasions the gobblers 
were young birds two years old, and acted a good 



128 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

deal like a schoolboy with his first sweetheart — 
who smiles and laughs at everything she says 
and does. With the young turkey it may be his 
first gobble on hearing the quaver of the hen. 
He is made crazy, and may unceremoniously 
rush to any sound that in the least resembles the 
cry of the hen, without a thought of what he is 
about or of the possible consequences. This is 
generally the kind of gobbler the novice in calling 
bags as his first, a two-year-old with a five-inch 
beard. 

In the early morning, during the spring, a gob- 
bler will fly from his roost to the ground, strut- 
ting and gobbling, whether a hen is in sight or 
not; this is done to attract the hens, and it is then 
you will hear the puffs to which Audubon refers. 
This sound is produced by the gobbler in expel- 
ling the air from its lungs, at the beginning of the 
strut, the sounds and motions of which have 
never been satisfactorily described. While going 
through the strut the gobbler produces a number 
of notes and motions that are of interest; first, 
the wings are drooped until the first six or eight 
feathers at the end of the wings touch the ground ; 



ASSOCIATION OF SEXES 129 

at the same time the tail is spread until like an 
open fan and erected at right angles to the body ; 
the neck is drawn down and back until the head 
rests against the shoulder feathers, and the body 
feathers are all thrown forward until they stand 
about at right angles to their normal place. At 
the same time the body is inflated with air, 
which, with the drooping wings, spread tail, and 
ruffled feathers, gives the bird the appearance 
of a big ball. Having blown himself up to the 
full capacity of his skin, the gobbler suddenly 
releases the air, making a puff exactly as if a 
person, having inflated the cheeks to their full 
capacity, suddenly opens the mouth. As the 
puff is given, the bird steps quickly forward four 
or five paces, dragging the ends of the stiff wing 
feathers along the ground, making a rasping 
sound ; he throws forward his chest, and, gradu- 
ally contracting the muscles, forces the air from 
his body with a low, rumbling boom, the feathers 
resuming their normal position as the air is ex- 
pelled. Three distinct sounds are produced: 
"Puff, cluck, b-o-o-r-r-r-m-i." At the termina- 
tion of the gobbling season the primaries of the 



130 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

wings, which are used to produce the cluck, are 
badly worn by the continued dragging on the 
ground. 

"While thus occupied," continues Audubon, 
"the males often encounter each other, and des- 
perate battles take place, ending in bloodshed 
and often in the loss of many lives, the weaker 
falling under repeated blows inflicted upon their 
heads by the stronger. I have often been much 
diverted while watching two males in fierce con- 
flict by seeing them move alternately back and 
forth as either had obtained a better hold, their 
wings dropping, tails partly raised, body feathers 
ruffled, and heads covered with blood. If in 
their struggle and gasps for breath one of them 
should lose his hold, his chance is over, for the 
other, still holding fast, hits him violently with 
his spurs and wings and in a few moments brings 
him to the ground. The moment he is dead the 
conqueror treads him underfoot; but what is 
stranger, not with hatred, but with all the emo- 
tions he employed in caressing the female." 

I differ with Audubon, not in the case of the 
conqueror using affectionate conduct upon a 



ASSOCIATION OF SEXES 131 

fallen foe, should he get him down, as that is 
truly a freak with them ; but I have not seen such 
a performance with wild birds, although I have 
noticed the domestic gobbler act similarly toward 
the body of a dead wild gobbler that I had placed 
before him on the ground. I have very often 
brought such a bird into the presence of a tame 
one, when, at the very sight of the dead bird 
on my back, the tame one would begin to droop 
his wings, purr, bow his neck, and bristle for a 
fight, and at once pounce upon the dead bird, 
even pounding me until I laid it down and allowed 
him to vent his rage by pounding it. After this 
he would begin to strut and gobble, and the red of 
his head becoming intense he would go through 
the caressing motions. More often though, under 
the circumstances, the tame bird would, at the 
sight of the dead wild gobbler, retire a little way 
and strut in a furious manner for an hour or two. 
This does not apply to one instance or individual, 
but many times in many places. I must differ 
with Audubon as to the results of these conflicts 
ever being fatal. I have seen many encounters 
as he describes, but have never in all my life seen 



132 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

one gobbler killed by another, or even crippled, 
although I have seen two or three birds fight 
together for hours at a time. Nor have I ever 
found a gobbler dead in the woods as a result of 
such an encounter, or even in a worried condi- 
tion. I have killed many old gobblers and found 
their heads and necks covered with blood, with 
spur punctures all over their breasts; but this 
never stopped them from gobbling, nor are these 
wounds deep, as the spur, which is an inch and a 
quarter long in the oldest of them, can only pene- 
trate the skin of the body after passing through 
the heavy mail of thick, tough feathers. 

Another proof that the gobblers in my hunting 
grounds were not killed this way is that I should 
have missed them. How would you know? you 
might ask. In the same way that a stock owner 
knows when he misses a yearling from his herd. 
Being constantly in the woods, I knew every 
gobbler and his age (at least the length of his 
beard) within a radius of several miles, although 
there be three in one locality and five in another. 
During the time they were in flocks or bands, if 
one were missing, surely I would find it out ere 



ASSOCIATION OF SEXES 133 

long; and it has never yet happened that, when 
one was missing, I could not trace it to a gunshot 
and not to turkey homicide. I will not flatly dis- 
pute that there have been such incidents as cited 
by Audubon, met with by others; but I do claim 
that murder is not common among turkeys, and 
such incidents must be extremely rare, or I would 
have witnessed them. I can see no way by which 
one turkey can kill another; for, as I have said 
before, the spur is not long enough except to 
barely penetrate the thick feathers, and the bit- 
ing and pinching of the tough skin on the neck and 
head could not cause contusion sufficient to pro- 
duce death, nor are the blows from the wings 
sufficiently severe to break bones. 



CHAITER VIII 

ITS ENEMIES AND FOOD 

N r BIRD on earth can boast of more or a 
greater variety of enemies than the wild 
turkey. The chief of them all is the 
genus Homo, with his sundry and sure methods of 
destruction. After man comes a host of wild 
beasts and birds, including the lynx, coyote, 
wolf, fox, mink, coon, skunk, opossum, rat, both 
golden and white-headed eagles, goshawk, Coo- 
per's and other hawks, horned owl, crow, etc., 
all of whom prey more or less upon the poor birds 
from the egg to maturity. There is never a mo- 
ment in the poor turkey's life that eternal 
vigilance is not the price of its existence. Still, 
many pass the gauntlet and live to a great age, 
the limit of which no man has discovered. I 
have been a lifelong hunter of all sorts of game 
indigenous to the Southern States, and I have 
never seen or heard of a wild turkey dying a nat- 

134 



ITS ENEMIES AND FOOD 135 

ural death, nor have I heard of any disease or 
epidemic among them; and were it not for the 
eternal war upon this fast-diminishing species, 
especially by man, they would be as plentiful now 
as fifty years ago. 

The first in the list of natural enemies of the 
turkey, if we admit the testimony and belief of 
nearly every turkey hunter, is the common lynx 
or wildcat, often known as bobcat. Many 
hunters believe that of all the enemies of the wild 
turkey the wildcat is the chief. In all my experi- 
ence I have never seen a turkey attacked by a 
cat, nor have I ever seen the skeleton of a turkey 
which had been killed and eaten by cats. I have 
never seen a cat crouching and creeping up on a 
turkey, nor have I had one of them come to me 
while calling, and I have had more than fifty 
years' experience in turkey hunting in all the Gulf 
States where the cat is common. Numerous per- 
sons of undoubted veracity, however, have as- 
sured me that they have seen cats creep up near 
them while calling turkeys, and in some instances 
the evidence seems conclusive that the cat had no 
other business than to steal up and pounce upon 



136 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

the turkey. Like any other carnivorous beast, 
the lynx may partake of turkey as an occasional 
repast, if they are thrown in his way, but this is 
an exception and not the rule. 

My brother, who is a well-known turkey 
hunter in Mississippi, has furnished me with the 
following incident: As he sat on the bank of a 
small lagoon, in the early morning, with his back 
against a log that lay across the lagoon, calling 
a gobbler which was slow to come, he heard the 
soft tread of something on the log very near his 
head, on the side next to the lagoon. Turning 
slowly, he saw a large cat within three feet of 
him, apparently having crossed the water in an 
attempt to spring upon the supposed turkey that 
had been yelping on that side. When my brother 
faced the cat, it beat a rapid retreat, and my 
brother, springing to his feet, waited until the 
cat left the log, thus turning its side toward 
him, when he fired, killing it on the spot. There 
is little doubt but that in another minute the cat 
would have jumped on my brother's head. An- 
other time he was sitting calling a gobbler, when 
suddenly he heard a growling and purring noise 



ITS ENEMIES AND FOOD 137 

in the cane near him. Presently there ap- 
peared three large cats, but they seemed to be play- 
ing or having a love feast, as they walked about, 
sprang upon each other, squalled, scratched, 
springing up the trees, then down again, until 
he broke up the fun by a couple of shots that 
laid out a brace of them. Another time he was 
calling a gobbler which was gobbling vehemently, 
when suddenly there was a great commotion 
among the turkeys, clucking and flying up in 
trees. A cat then appeared out of the cane and 
was shot. 

Now, does this prove, in either of the last two 
cases, that the cats were trying to catch the tur- 
keys? By no means. For, had the cats been try- 
ing to get a turkey, they would not have shown 
themselves. I believe the cats were simply 
lounging about in quest of rabbits or squirrels, 
and happened to pass near the birds, which 
became frightened at the appearance of so un- 
canny a visitor. In the last incident, had the 
cat been attempting to seize or pounce upon 
the turkeys, they would not have gobbled again, 
but would have left the place in a hurry. An- 



138 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

other reason why I claim that wildcats do not ha- 
bitually feed on turkeys is, that one may find a 
given number of turkeys in a piece of woodland, 
and never miss one from the flock, unless trapped 
or killed by a gun — that is, after they are grown. 
I will cite another incident connected with 
the habits of the lynx or wildcat that came 
under my observation while in quest of wild tur- 
keys in the State of Alabama, in company with 
my friend John K. Renaud, of New Orleans, an 
enthusiastic and inveterate sportsman. We 
were in the Tombigbee Swamp, and one morning, 
while sitting together in a fallen treetop, calling 
turkeys, our backs against a log, I felt something 
soft against my hip. As it felt a little warmer 
than the earth should feel, I pulled away the 
leaves with my hands, and there lay an immense 
cane rabbit dead. Upon pulling it out, I found its 
head was eaten off close to the shoulders, with no 
other part touched. This was the work of a 
lynx. Two days after, we were sitting by an- 
other log, not over a hundred yards from the first 
spot, and for the same purpose. I found there a 
similar object, a large rabbit freshly killed and 



ITS ENEMIES AND FOOD 139 

half eaten, the head and forepart of the body 
gone. That was the work of a cat. There were 
plenty of turkeys frequenting that ridge every 
day, but never one of them was taken by a lynx, 
as I knew positively just how many gobblers and 
hens there were in that piece of woods. 

I do not think wildcats ever eat the eggs of the 
turkey when they come across a nest of them ; they 
may catch the sitting birds, but all other animals 
named in the foregoing list eagerly eat the eggs, 
if they are lucky enough to find the nests; this 
is also true of the crow, who, on locating a nest, 
will watch until the mother leaves it in search of 
food, when it will quickly destroy as many eggs 
as possible. All the animals and birds named will 
catch the young turkeys, and the larger birds 
and animals will kill grown turkeys when they 
can catch them. 

Snakes give the turkey very little trouble. I 
do not believe any snake we have can swallow a 
turkey egg, except possibly the largest of the 
colubers (chicken snakes). I have never met 
one that was guilty of it, although I have seen 
them swallow the eggs of the tame turkey. 



T 



140 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

Mr. John Hamilton, who has had great experi- 
ence as a turkey hunter, tells me of seeing horned 
owls catch turkeys in the Brazos Bottoms in 
Texas, a number of times, as follows: 

On going into the woods before daylight, and, 
taking a stand near some known turkey roost, 
to be ready to call them on their leaving the 
roost, he has, a number of times, been led directly 
to the tree in which the turkeys were roosting 
by a horned owl who was after a turkey for 
breakfast. By walking quietly under the tree, 
and getting the birds outlined against the sky, 
he could see what was going on. Turkeys pre- 
fer to roost on limbs parallel to the ground, and 
the owl, selecting a hen perched on a suitable 
limb, would alight on the same limb between 
her and the trunk of the tree, moving sedately 
along the limb toward the victim, and when very 
near her would voice a low "who, who." The 
turkey, not liking the nearness of such a neighbor, 
who spoke in such sepulchral tones, would reply, 
"Quit, quit," and move farther out on the limb. 
After a few moments the owl would again sidle 
up to the hen, repeating his first question, "Who, 



ITS ENEMIES AND FOOD 141 

who." "Quit, quit" would answer Miss Turkey, 
moving a little farther out on the limb. This 
would be kept up until the end of the limb was 
reached and the turkey would be obliged to fly, 
and then the owl would catch her. From per- 
sonal observation I know horned owls always 
push chickens from the roosts and catch them 
while on the wing. 

A great destroyer of the turkey is rain and 
long wet spells, just after they are hatched in the 
months of May and June. I have always no- 
ticed that, if these months were reasonably dry, 
there would be plenty of turkeys and quail the 
following fall. After all, the weather controls 
the crops of turkeys more than all else. 

The local range of the wild turkey varies in 
proportion as the food supply is generous or 
scanty. If food is plentiful, the turkey remains 
near where hatched, and does not make exten- 
sive rambles, its daily journeys being limited to 
a mile or so, and often to not a fourth of that dis- 
tance. I can not agree with writers who claim 
that wild turkeys are constantly on the move, 
travelling the country over with no intention of 



142 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

ever stopping. Of course, when the food supply- 
is limited and scant, as during the seasons of 
dearth of mast, the turkeys are necessarily com- 
pelled to wander farther in order to secure suf- 
ficient food ; but they will always return to their 
native haunts when their appetites are appeased. 
In the early morning, all things being favor- 
able, their first move after leaving the roost is in 
search of food, which search they undertake 
with characteristic vigor and energy, scratching 
and turning over the dry leaves and decaying 
vegetation. Two kinds of food are thus gained: 
various seed or mast, fallen from the trees 
and bushes, and all manner of insects, of 
both of which they are very fond, and which 
constitute a large part of their food supply. 
There is no bird of the gallinaceous order that 
requires and destroys more insects than wild 
turkeys. They will scratch with great earnest- 
ness over a given space, then, all at once, start 
off, moving rapidly, sometimes raising their 
broad wings and flapping them against their 
sides, as if to stretch, while others leap and skip 
and waltz about. Then they will go in one di- 




The chief of all his enemies is the "Genus homo" 



ITS ENEMIES AND FOOD 143 

rection for some distance. Suddenly, one finds 
a morsel of some kind to eat, and begins to scratch 
among the leaves, the whole flock doing like- 
wise, and they will keep this up until a large 
space, perhaps half an acre of land, is so gone 
over. What induces them to scratch up one 
place so thoroughly and leave others untouched 
would seem a mystery to the inexperienced; but 
close observation will show that such scratching 
indicates the presence of some kind of food under 
the leaves. It may be the nuts of the beech, oak, 
chestnut, chinquapin, black or sweet gum tree, 
pecan nut, grape, or muscadine seed. If one will 
observe the scratchings, it will be seen that they 
occur under one or another of such trees or vines. 
Thus they travel on, stopping to scratch at in- 
tervals until their crops are filled. 

Under certain conditions, wild turkeys are 
compelled to seek numerous sources to ob- 
tain a supply of food, as when there is a failure 
of the mast crop, which affords the principal 
supply of their food, or when there is an over- 
flow of the great swamps or river bottoms, which 
turkeys so often inhabit. When such over- 



144 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

flows occur, the turkeys are either forced to take 
up their abode in the trees, or to leave their feed- 
ing ground and retreat to the high lands that are 
not overflowed. In the latter case there is little 
trouble in procuring food by scratching in the 
dry leaves or gleaning in the grain fields. But 
turkeys are hard to drive from their haunts, even 
by high waters, and more often than not they 
will stubbornly remain in the immediate locality 
of their favorite swamps and river bottoms by 
taking to the trees until the waters have subsided ; 
they will persistently remain in the trees even 
for two or three months, with the water five to 
twenty-five feet in depth beneath them. At 
such times they subsist upon the green buds of 
the trees upon which they perch, and the few 
grapes and berry seeds that may remain attached 
to the vines which they can reach from the 
limbs. It is truly remarkable how long these 
birds can subsist and keep in fair flesh under such 
conditions. There is a critical time during these 
overflows, when turkeys are hard pressed in that 
they may obtain sufficient food to sustain life; 
this is when the rivers overflow in December, 



ITS ENEMIES AND FOOD 145 

January, or February, before the buds have ap- 
peared or have become large enough to be of any 
value as food. Under these conditions they 
must fly from tree to tree until they reach dry 
ground, or starve to death. 

Although I have never known of a gobbler 
being thus starved to death, I have seen them so 
emaciated they could hardly stand. One inci- 
dent of this sort I will relate: I found four very 
large old gobblers in an overflowed swamp on the 
Tombigbee River in Alabama, and as it was in 
February, it was too early in the year for herb- 
age to begin the spring growth. The river had 
overflowed the bottoms suddenly, and it was a 
long way to dry land, perhaps three miles, so the 
turkeys could get little or nothing to sustain life. 
I shot one of these gobblers, not thinking of their 
probable condition, and found I had bagged a 
skeleton. 

If the bottoms are not over three miles wide, 
turkeys will usually, on approach of rising water, 
start for the dry ridges farther back from the 
river, and there remain until the waters steal 
upon them, when they will fly into the trees. 



146 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

Sometimes a ridge is an island at sundown when 
they go to roost, but is covered during the night, 
and when the morning comes there is no dry land 
in sight for the poor birds to alight upon. This is 
bewildering to them and presents a new state of 
affairs. If there be an old mother hen in the flock, 
she will at once take in the situation, and by 
certain significant clucks and a peculiar cackle, 
which is a part of their elaborate language, 
she will take wing and fly two or three hundred 
yards in the direction of dry land, alighting in the 
trees, when, after a rest, with another cluck or 
two, the party will continue in the same direc- 
tion. This is kept up until the dry land is 
reached, when, with wild acclaim and a general 
cackle of exultation, they all alight on the ground 
and proceed at once, at a fearful rate, to scratch 
up the leaves in search of food. 

The hunter, aware of these habits after the 
swamps begin to overflow, will lose no opportu- 
nity for an early visit to the hummock at the mar- 
gin of the backwaters. The turkeys do not re- 
main near the edge of the overflow for any length 
of time, but very soon extend their range farther 



ITS ENEMIES AND FOOD 147 

into the high forests and fields. They seem to 
know instinctively that it is unsafe to linger near 
the edge of the water. 

In case the overflow occurs in March or April, 
when the trees are full of fresh buds and blos- 
soms, the turkeys have an easy time, living in the 
treetops, fluttering from branch to branch, gath- 
ering the tender buds and young leaves of such 
trees as the ash, hackberry, pin oak, and the 
yellow bloom of the birch, all of which are favor- 
ite foods, while of the beech and some other trees 
it is the fringe-like bloom they eat. They will 
remain in the trees out of sight of land for months 
if they have plenty of buds and young leaves to 
eat, and keep in fair flesh; but the flesh is not so 
palatable as when feeding on mast or grain. 

I once knew a flock of fifteen turkeys to re- 
main in trees above an overflow for two months. 
I could see them daily from my cabin on the bank 
of a lake in Alabama, and could sit at my table 
and watch them fluttering as they fed on the 
hackberry buds. They were in sight of a dry, 
piney wood, and a flight of three hundred yards 
across a lake would have taken them to the dry 



148 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

/ 

land, but not once did they seem inclined to go 
to it. They remained in the trees until the water 
went down, and the next I saw of them was in an 
open plantation, with the lake on one side and 
the river on the other. The water had barely 
left the surface in places, and it was muddy and 
sloppy. They never once went to dry land, but 
returned to their swamp haunts as the water 
abated. 

On one occasion, as I was going down the river 
in my skiff, I saw and passed a great number of 
wild turkeys, one hundred or more, in small flocks 
in the timber near and along the river banks. 
The adjoining swamps were overflowed, with no 
land above the water. Most of these turkeys 
were sitting in cottonwood trees immediately on 
the river banks or a little way out in the tim- 
ber, eating the buds. Many of them were in the 
trees that hung over the river, and, although 
most of the trees were leafless, thus exposing the 
turkeys to view, they remained there quite 
unconcerned while steamboats passed right by 
them. As I had three turkeys already in my 
boat, I felt no desire to molest them as I drifted 



ITS ENEMIES AND FOOD 149 

by and under them. I passed right under some 
fine gobblers on their perches, not over thirty 
feet up, and they only looked curiously down at 
me; they seemed to be busily engaged in feeding, 
and sailed from tree to tree, keeping up a great 
stir and racket. It is a beautiful sight to watch 
a flock of wild turkeys budding, especially on 
beech buds. The branches of the beech trees 
are long and so limber that the birds with all 
their efforts can barely hold on to the tiny twigs 
while they gather their food; hence they are kept 
in a constant wobble and flutter, bobbing up and 
down with their wings spread out to sustain an 
equilibrium, and their broad tails waving and 
tossing, bringing them into all manner of atti- 
tudes, thus enabling the hunter to see and hear 
them a quarter of a mile through the timber. 
Some get upon very small limbs, then stretch out 
their long necks and pick the buds; others will 
spread out both wings for support and lie prone 
on a bunch of twigs while they feed. There is 
little or no trouble for the hunter to approach a 
flock so engaged and pick off his choice. They 
are so bent on eating that they take no note of 



150 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

what is going on around them; even if over dry 
land they will often remain in the trees half a 
day eating buds, if other food is scarce, and when 
tired or satiated they will sit calmly on some 
large limb and go to sleep or preen their feathers. 
This is one of the best opportunities afforded the 
crafty hunter with his good rifle to steal up be- 
hind a tree and deliberately drop one, as at this 
time the leaves are too small to afford much cover, 
and the turkeys are exposed to open view, giving 
the prettiest shots imaginable for the rifle. While 
this is one of the most successful and easiest ways 
of securing turkeys, there are few hunters who 
know enough about it to take advantage of 
it. Persons will often pass under trees in a tur- 
key locality, when suddenly one or more turkeys 
will fly out. The hunter looks up, but sees only 
the turkeys on the wing, and cannot understand 
why they were in the trees at that time of day, 
as he has not flushed any. He wonders how 
they came to be there and does not know they 
were up there budding, having probably been 
there all the morning. 

The budding season lasts but a short time, if 



ITS ENEMIES AND FOOD 151 

the birds are not forced to it by an overflow. On 
dry land it lasts a month or six weeks, for by 
that time the buds have matured into full-grown 
leaves, and are too old and tough for the birds to 
eat. 



CHAPTER IX 

HABITS OF ASSOCIATION AND ROOSTING 

jk FTER obtaining a supply of food, the wild 
/% turkeys become moody and careless, 
JL Ml. lounging about the sunny slopes if the 
weather be cool, or if it be hot, seeking the 
shade of the hummock or thicket, preening their 
feathers or wallowing in the dust. They thus 
pass the middle hours of the day in social har- 
mony and restful abandon. About three or four 
o'clock in the afternoon the line of march is re- 
sumed in the direction of the roosting place, and 
they gather their evening meal as they journey 
along. They are excellent timekeepers, usually 
winding up the day at one of their favourite 
roosts; but in case this calculation is faulty and 
sundown overtakes them a mile or so from the de- 
sired spot, they will start on a run in single file, the 
old hens leading, and keep going rapidly until 
their destination is reached. They will then stop 

152 



HABITS OF ASSOCIATION AND ROOSTING 153 

suddenly in a close group, peer about, uttering 
low purring sounds, while having a breathing 
spell from the long run. Having regained their 
composure, the old hens will sound several clucks 
in rapid succession, terminating in a gutteral 
cackle, when the whole of the flock will take 
wing. With a wild roar, up they go in different 
directions, alighting in the largest trees with sel- 
dom more than two or three turkeys in a single 
tree. If they are not satisfied with their first 
selection of a roosting place, they will fly from 
tree to tree until a satisfactory place is found; 
then they settle down quietly for the night. 

Wild turkeys have a preference for roosting 
over water, and they will often go a long way in 
order to secure such a roost. The backwater 
from the overflowing streams, when it spreads 
out widely through the standing timber of the 
river bottoms, affords them great comfort; also 
the cypress ponds to be found in our Southern 
river districts. They evidently fancy that there 
is greater safety in such places. 

The turkey is happy when it can traverse the 
ridges, glades, and flats in a day's ramble from 






154 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

one watercourse to another, having a roosting 
place at one ridge one night and the next night 
at another. This sort of arrangement suits them 
admirably, as they dislike to roost in the same 
trees two or more consecutive nights. I have 
known them to make such regular changes as 
to roost in three or four different places in a 
week, bringing up at the same place not exceed- 
ing once or twice a week, and that on or about 
certain days. These are facts peculiar to the 
wild turkey, especially if localities are favorably 
arranged. But often they will roost very many 
nights near the same place. If the range is un- 
limited, however, they will seldom roost oftener 
than twice a week at a given spot. There are 
exceptions though, for I have known positively 
of old gobblers who took up their abode at a 
certain spot and roosted, if not in the same tree, 
in the same clump of trees, night after night and 
year after year with the persistent regularity of 
the peacock, which will roost on the same limb of 
a tree for ten or twenty years if undisturbed. 
When an old gobbler does take to this hermit- 
like custom, he is the most difficult bird to 



HABITS OF ASSOCIATION AND ROOSTING 155 

bag in the world. His life seems immune from 
attacks of any nature, and he seems to know the 
tactics of every hunter in the vicinity of his range. 
He keeps aloof from any old logs or stumps 
where an enemy may lurk, and never gobbles un- 
til daylight, so that he can take in every inch of 
his surroundings. I have killed from four to six 
old gobblers, in a given range, while trying to bag 
a certain stubborn old chap whose vigilance and 
good luck have saved him from bullets for years; 
but through patience and dogged persistence 
in the hunter he succumbed at last. Although 
some hold out longer in their reserved and re- 
tired course, I can truthfully say that I have yet 
to encounter one that can not be brought to the 
gun by fair and square calling. Many experi- 
enced and worthy hunters will criticise this as- 
sertion, and are honest in their convictions that I 
am in error; but I will take the dissenter to the 
haunts of the most astute old gobbler he may 
select, and call the turkey right up to the muzzle 
of his gun, or near enough to see the glint of his eye. 
A flock may be met one morning on the skirts 
of the backwater from an overflow river bottom, 



156 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

probably a flock of hens and gobblers together. 
There would be a great commotion among them 
and a general mixing up, yelping, and gobbling. 
On visiting this place the next morning one would 
not be seen or heard. Crossing to another lake 
or backwater, one might find the whole flock, or 
possibly the gobblers, with not a hen around. If 
in the gobbling season, and the males are gob- 
bling, in less than half an hour the hens would be 
among them, but if not in the gobbling season 
the former may not meet the latter again for a 
month, as in the spring the sexes have no more 
attraction for each other than were they birds of 
entirely different groups. Except in the spring 
you may flush and scatter a flock of hens and 
gobblers, and after a reasonable wait begin to 
call with the notes of the hen. Not a gobbler 
will answer or notice you at all, but the hens will 
reply by yelping, squealing, and clucking. The 
gobblers meantime are as stolid as an Indian and 
as silent as a dead stump. Wait until the hens 
have gone, then begin the lingo of the gobbler 
and you find another result. 

Usually there are plenty of wild turkeys in the 





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tell 




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~~^— •<&>_? •*_•.." ** ~ - ■ > ■^=.,0""' JD^V'vLr -•-< ■ *. ' — 




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An ideal turkey country. They will go a long way to roost in trees 
growing in water 



HABITS OF ASSOCIATION AND ROOSTING 157 

Southern river bottoms, in fall and winter, and 

there they remain until driven to the uplands 

by overflows, where they must subsist on pine 

mast, or remain in the trees over the water, and 

live on the young buds and tender leaves. I have 

repeatedly noticed this in the Tombigbee swamps 

in the State of Alabama. Those that do not go 

to the hills and pine forests will hug the margin of 

the overflow until the waters subside, when they 

will immediately return to their former haunts, 

however wet and muddy. When incubating time 

comes they seek the higher, dryer, and more 

open places, grassy and brush-covered abandoned 

plantations, there to carry out the duties of 

reproduction. 

_ 

After the season of incubation is at an end the 
gobblers cease, almost entirely, associating with 
the hens, collecting, as the summer advances, 
in bands of from two to a dozen. Thus they re- 
main all through the summer, autumn and win- 
ter, acting the role of old bachelors or widowers, 
and never separating unless disturbed by an 
enemy. The females care for and rear the young 
broods, returning to the swamps or hummocks 



_L 



158 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

in the fall, where their favorite food has matured 
and shed. 

One of the last seasons I spent in the vicin- 
ity of the Tombigbee country in Alabama there 
were no grapes or muscadines in the bottoms, 
but a good pin oak crop of acorns, such as 
the turkeys like. In the higher woods there was 
a heavy black gum and berry crop, and there 
the turkeys were, while in the oak bottoms there 
was scarcely a flock. 

During the summer months, old gobblers, like 
old bucks, having banded together, become very 
friendly and attached to each other, feeding in 
perfect harmony. They stroll together wherever 
their inclinations may lead them, and are then 
very shy and retiring. One seldom sees them 
in the summer, but when they do it is generally 
in an open prairie or old field, eating blackberries, 
wallowing in an old ash hole, or chasing grass- 
hoppers. These old bachelors do not get fat 
until fall, although they have an ample supply 
of food. They are lean and ugly and forlorn 
looking until after the molting season is over, 
in August and September, and their new bronze 



HABITS OF ASSOCIATION AND ROOSTING 159 

suits are donned; they then begin to fatten, and 
by December are in excellent condition of flesh 
and feathers, continuing to improve until the 
gobbling season returns next spring. These 
confirmed old bachelors will not associate with 
the other turkeys, but the old hens that have 
had their nests broken up and have reared no 
broods will associate all winter with the young 
broods and their mothers. I have often observed 
that these old patriarchs, as a rule, never associ- 
ate with any other age or sex of turkeys. In 
summer you will often see an old gobbler or two 
with a flock of hens early in the morning; but see 
the same flock three hours later and he is not with 
them. In the early morning hours of spring, while 
there is a general gobbling and strutting parade, 
all ages and sexes mingle in the exuberance of the 
season and hour; but when this outburst of frolic 
and revelry is over, the different bands return 
to the sterner business of the day, that of search- 
ing for food. The old gobblers remain gobbling, 
strutting, gyrating round, picking at and teasing 
each other, or strumming now and then with the 
tip of wings, until a riot is precipitated and a 



1<J0 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

fight ensues, in which two become engaged, while 
the more peaceful or timid quickly leave the 
vicinity. The gladiators then begin a tug of 
war, and after a few blows and jams with wings 
and spurs, one seizes another by the loose skin 
of the head, which is very limp, affording an ex- 
cellent hold; then No. 2 gets his opponent by the 
nape of the neck, and they pull, push, and shove, 
standing on tiptoes, prancing and hauling away, 
each endeavoring to stretch his neck as high as 
possible, as if determined to pull the other's head 
off, while both necks are twisted around each 
other, their wattles aglow with the red sign of 
anger, while their hazel eyes sparkle with wrath. 
They writhe, twist, and haul away, until perhaps 
a quarter of an acre of earth is trampled, and 
keep it up until the foolish combat ends from 
sheer exhaustion, when one of them runs away. 
The victor, if not too much used up, having 
recovered breath and strength, will set up a gob- 
bling and strutting that will cause the leaves of 
the trees to tremble. He thus proclaims his 
victory and assumes the role of monarch of all 
he surveys. 




A hermit. 



It would take an expert turkey hunter 
to circumvent this bird 



HABITS OF ASSOCIATION AND ROOSTING 1G1 

By these fights one gobbler establishes his 
claim as lord of a certain range, which no other 
gobbler will dispute during the rest of the season. 

Sometimes, though rarely, I have known an 
old monarch to take a companion gobbler into 
the very bosom of his harem, however strange 
this may appear. I have known of half a dozen 
instances of this nature where two old gobblers 
have formed an inseparable alliance and remained 
together staunch friends for years. Hens are 
seldom seen in their company and they are ex- 
tremely difficult to call. I hunted one such brace 
three years, killing many other gobblers in the 
long effort to bag these two ; never did I call them 
within gunshot, until one day by some accident 
they got separated, when it was no trouble to call 
and kill one of them; the other is, for all I 
know, alive now. 

Such fights as I have described break up the 
social ring of old bachelors, and until the love 
season is over each male takes up a range to him- 
self, calling to his side as many of the females 
within hearing of his voice as will come to him. 
Several gobblers can be heard in the morning 



162 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

gobbling within a radius of a few hundred yards, 
but each keeps to himself, and by frequent and 
persistent gobbling and strutting secures the 
society of such hens as may favor him with their 
presence. 

After the disbanding of the old gobblers is the 
best time in the whole season to bring them to 
call, as they will come to almost any call, yelp, 
or cluck; except the mogul himself. His bigotry 
and vanity render him most indifferent to the 
seductive coquetry of the females, much less 
to human imitators. Being assured of, and 
satisfied with, a well-filled harem, he gives little 
care to the discordant piping of the hunter, or 
even the gentle quaver of a hen. 

In this latitude — from 30 degrees to 33 de- 
grees north — the gobbling season begins about 
the first week of March, ending the last of May, 
embracing about three months, though the time 
depends much on the thermal conditions of the 
spring. If the weather be dry and pleasant the 
season will not last as long as if wet and chilly. 



CHAPTER X 

GUNS I HAVE USED ON TURKEYS 

THE rifle is, par excellence, the arm for 
hunting the wild turkey under nearly 
all conditions. It matters little what 
calibre rifle is used. Years ago when I began to 
hunt turkeys the muzzle-loading round ball rifle 
was the only arm thought fit, and it surely did 
the work well and satisfactorily. 

It is said that Davy Crockett when a boy was 
compelled by his father to shoot enough game in 
the morning to supply his dinner, and was allowed 
one load of powder and a ball to do it with. If he 
missed and got no game he got no dinner. 

In the old days the .38 calibre, shooting a 
round ball, was about the proper size, with not 
too much twist in the rifle; one twist or turn in 
five feet was about the thing. Those rifles were 
reliable and did not lacerate the flesh unless too 
much powder was used. 

163 



164 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

Next came the breech-loading rifle with small 
charge of powder and heavy bullet; like the Win- 
chester model '66 and Frank Wesson's single 
shot. These guns shot with remarkable correct- 
ness at short range, especially the Frank Wesson 
rifle; but none of them had enough velocity to 
do as fine shooting as is required in turkey shoot- 
ing above 75 to 100 yards. With me the .38 
calibre Wesson rifle did more certain work on 
old gobblers than any other rifle I have ever 
seen or used, nor was the powder charge suf- 
ficient to tear the flesh severely, but it would 
drive the bullet through two old gobblers. 

The next best gun, and the best all-round 
shooting gun I ever used on turkeys was a .32-20 
Winchester, model '73, but this gun tore the 
flesh badly. 

The points to be desired in a turkey rifle are 
these: A bullet that will kill under ordinary 
conditions and at the same time leave a mini- 
mum trace through the bird; and a flat trajec- 
tory for fine shooting at 125 or 150 yards, as that 
is as far as one will be apt to risk a shot at them. 

I found that the .32 calibre killed as well as 



GUNS I HAVE USED ON TURKEYS 165 

the .50 calibre — I mean the .32-20 — if the shot 
was placed right. It must be remembered that 
the skin of birds is very thin and delicate; the 
flesh under it, especially the breast, is extremely 
tender and juicy, and a rifle bullet passing 
through it with great velocity will spatter the 
flesh like soft butter, the bullet having mush- 
roomed against the thick, hard feathers, or even 
on striking the flesh itself. 

I believe the best rifle that could be made for 
turkey shooting would be .30 or .32 calibre, with 
about 15 grains of powder, and the weight of the 
bullet reduced as much as possible without in- 
jury to accuracy. It would have ample force 
and not tear the flesh and give even greater pene- 
tration than the .32-20. A turkey rifle should 
not mushroom its bullets, for, although the tur- 
key possesses remarkable vitality, he is easily 
killed if shot in the right place. 

As to shotguns, there is little choice so far as 
the shooting is concerned. Any good modern 
choke bored gun will answer — the choked being 
greatly to be preferred, as it concentrates its 
shot — which is a desirable quality in scoring — ■ 



166 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

on the head or neck, the only mark for a shotgun 
on a turkey. No. 6 is by all means the size shot 
for this purpose; one barrel with No. 6 for the 
head, the other No. 3 or 4 for the body, is the 
proper thing. 

Wing shooting turkey is so out of line with 
my idea of turkey hunting under any conditions 
that I have little to offer in that respect. To 
see a big, fine gobbler with his rich bronze plu- 
mage all messed up by shot and grime, legs and 
wings all broken and bloody, dangling about, is 
a disgusting sight to the true turkey hunter. 
The turkey is not built or in any way adapted to 
being so shot, but there are men so nervous and 
excitable that they cannot still-hunt turkeys. 
Such men must be going all the time, and their 
only chance is to scare up the birds and shoot 
them on the wing. They are not of the stuff 
that make good turkey hunters, and they will 
never succeed, no matter how they try. They 
have no patience to wait on the movement of a 
turkey when coming to the call, but can sit 
around a hotel all day spinning yarns, talking 
politics, and perhaps playing cards all night. 



GUNS I HAVE USED ON TURKEYS 1(57 

This type of man can never become a quiet, con- 
templative, thoughtful turkey hunter. 

Unless killed or wing broken, a turkey may 
receive while on the wing a mortal hurt and yet 
be lost, for it has such vitality that it will prolong 
its flight to such a distance as to be lost. At short 
range turkeys on the wing are easily dropped 
with a shotgun, but then the whole body is 
usually filled with shot. Hallocksays: "If the 
hunter be so fortunate as to get within reach 
of a turkey, let him take deliberate aim at 
the head if he has a rifle, but the possessor of a 
shotgun should cover the whole body." To me 
this seems absurd, for it is the reverse of this that 
I would suggest to successfully kill the bird. 
Should the man of average nerve and excitability 
take aim at the head of a turkey with a rifle he 
will miss it. I have done it myself under certain 
conditions, and under ordinary circumstances I 
would not suggest that any sportsman take such 
chances. 

The turkey hunter who uses his rifle gets 
more real enjoyment out of the sport than with 
any other arm. He gets more chances to kill the 



168 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

bird, because of the greater killing range of 
the rifle, and consequently is surer of his game, 
particularly if he is a marksman with a cool 
head, steady hand, and good vision. If one de- 
sires to be a first-class, all-round turkey hunter, 
my advice is to employ the rifle, and when a 
turkey is found, aim for the body, and that part 
of it that covers the vitals. If you do not do 
this you are likely to see your game running 
away as fast as his legs can carry, him, for, unless 
your bullet has passed through his body, striking 
a vital part, the bird is likely to escape. If cir- 
cumstances are such that you cannot procure a 
rifle, or are wedded to a shotgun, I should advise 
the use of No. 6 shot, and would recommend aim- 
ing at the head of the bird, unless they are young 
birds and quite near enough to make sure your 
shot. Do not use buckshot if you can procure 
any other. Should you use No. 5 or 6 shot and 
aim at the head, you will be surprised to learn at 
what range you can kill a turkey. Some hunters 
who use a shotgun prefer No. G in one barrel and 
No. 4 in the other, using one for the head and 
the other for the body. The reason that I do 



GUNS I HAVE USED ON TURKEYS 169 

not recommend the use of buckshot in turkey 
hunting is because the vital parts of the turkey 
are very small, and at forty yards the chances of 
reaching these parts with buckshot are slim. 
Those who have tried buckshot at this range 
note that they have knocked their birds over 
nearly every time, but are surprised to see them 
get up and run away. This never happens if 
the sportsman uses a good rifle and places his 
bullet in the right place. 



CHAPTER XI 

LEARNING TURKEY LANGUAGE — WHY DOES THE 
GOBBLER GOBBLE 

TO LEARN to imitate the cry of a turkey 
is no great feat, if you have something 
to call with and know the sounds you 
wish to imitate. One can become proficient in 
the use of the call with reasonable effort; but to 
expect to call intelligently, without a proper 
knowledge of the interpretation of the notes pro- 
duced, is as absurd as to read a foreign language 
and not know the meaning of the words. Un- 
less you know the meaning of the gobble, the 
yelp, and cluck, in all their variations, you cannot 
expect to use the turkey language intelligently. 
Without such knowledge you will fail to interest 
the bird you try to call, unless by accident 'or 
sheer good luck you brought the cautious thing 
within sight. It is not desirable, though, that we 
depend upon luck; one should prefer skill in 

170 



LEARNING TURKEY LANGUAGE 171 

calling, so that he can at all times depend with a 
degree of certainty on accomplishing his purpose 
of fooling the bird. I was once hunting with a 
friend, and as we sat together by White Rock 
Creek calling an old gobbler; two or three other 
hunters, at different points but within hearing, 
were also calling, keeping the turkey continually 
gobbling. My friend asked why I did not call 
oftener, fearing the others would decoy the tur- 
key away from us. I told him that I had already 
put in my call and the gobbler understood it, and 
the other fellows were calling by simply making 
sounds with no apparent meaning or reason, and 
when the gobbler got ready he would come to 
us. I then took out my pipe and had a smoke. 
Meantime the calling by the other hunters was 
going on at a terrific rate, and the gobbler was 
apparently tickling their ambition with his con- 
stant rattle and strut. Ere long he came di- 
rectly to us and we shot him. 

I have known men who could in practice yelp 
almost as well as the turkey, but when attempt- 
ing to call the wild bird would do little better 
than the veriest novice. If such persons' con- 



172 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

fidence and ability to call did not fail them, 
their judgment would, and the opportunity would 
be spoiled by some absurd act. 

It is not so much what one should do in call- 
ing, but what one should not do, as it is better 
to leave things undone unless done right. This 
subject requires the most minute and careful 
knowledge of turkey lore, and will require much 
of your patience before you are proficient, and I 
trust you will find in these lines more for your 
contemplation than you might suspect. 

The conditions under which you call are daily 
varied, while the methods to be employed each 
time are quite complex. In spring the males 
are gobbling, and the love-call of the hen is then 
the one to use. In the fall and winter, when the 
turkeys are in flocks and do not gobble, this not 
being the love season, you do not then make 
love-call, but such as suits the occasion and the 
temper of the game. 

First, as to gobbling: We will analyze that 
feature, as it involves great interest to the 
hunter. As a matter of fact, more people hunt the 
turkey during the gobbling season than at any 



LEARNING TURKEY LANGUAGE 173 

other time, and strange to say get fewer turkeys, 
simply from the fact that the call is not under- 
stood. 

Why do they go in quest of turkeys at that 
season ? For the reason that they are much more 
easily located, as the gobbling of the turkey in- 
dicates its whereabouts, removing the necessity 
of spending much time in search of them; hence, 
were it not for the gobbling many hunters would 
never attempt to hunt the birds, knowing too 
well it would be useless. 

The first and most important thing that you 
should impress on your mind is, that the turkey- 
cocks gobble for a reason. 

Why does the gobbler stand in one spot and 
make a great ado? Every turkey, whether born 
in Florida or Mexico, does the same, and at 
the same period of the year, because his gobbling 
and strutting is to let the hens know where he is, 
and if he keeps it up every hen in hearing will 
come to him. The gobble of the male turkey 
is his love-call. In the early spring, when na- 
ture begins to unfold its latent energies and de- 
velop its dormant resources for creating new life, 



174 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

the old gobbler feels its impulses, and is not 
slow in asserting his place as leader of the grand 
aggregation of noisy choristers that make the 
deep solitudes of the forests ring to the echo. 
From some tall pine or cypress he loudly pro- 
claims the approach of dawn. " Gil-obble-obble- 
obble, quit, quit cut" comes the love-call from his 
excited throat, so suddenly and unexpectedly 
that all the smaller species within a hundred 
yards are dazed with fright. I often thought 
that, if he possessed any faculty of humor, he 
must be greatly amused at the commotion he 
creates all by himself. 

He stands erect on his high perch, peering in all 
directions to determine the next thing to do, or to 
ascertain the result of that already done, and it 
often happens that this is the last and only gobble 
he will produce that morning, owing to its being 
accidental. But he will stand upon the limb of 
his roost quietly looking about, and after preen- 
ing his plumage for a few moments, and seeing 
that no enemy lurks near, he stoops, spreading 
his great curved wings, and silently as a summer's 
breeze leaves the tree and sails to the earth fifty 



LEARNING TURKEY LANGUAGE 175 

to seventy-five yards from his perch. He stands 
perfectly still some moments until satisfied all is 
well, then he carefully places the tip of one wing 
on the other across his back once or twice, and 
walks slowly away to feed. A few mornings 
later, if the air be crisp, clear, and not too cold, 
he will gobble lustily many times before he flies 
down, for the first warm days of spring begin to 
arouse his animal instincts and he longs for the 
society of his mates. 

He is now in the prime of turkeyhood, in his 
finest feather and flesh. He is fat and plump, 
hence this is the stage at which the hunter, most 
of all, prefers to bag him; but he is no easy game 
to secure just now. 

If he ever were afraid of his own voice, step, or 
shadow, it is at this time; but the forest is ringing 
with a din of bird song, and it is impossible to 
restrain his impulse to " gil-obble-obble-obble." 
Making one or two quick steps, he raises his 
head and says "put-put," then stands per- 
fectly still, his great hazel eyes scanning every 
leaf or bird that moves. 

Why does he gobble? It is the call of nature 



176 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

to break up his loneliness and secure the society 
of his mates. Turkeys do not mate in pairs, they 
are polygamous, loving many wives. 

I wish to direct attention to the common and 
erroneous belief, even among expert turkey 
hunters, that it is the call-note of the hen that 
brings the sexes together. This is incorrect. 
It is the call of the male. It was after years of 
study that I discovered this fact, which, once 
plain to my mind, assured my success as a tur- 
key hunter. I found that the gobbler was doing 
the same thing I was doing; I was struggling with 
all my ability and tact to draw him out, while 
he was playing the same game on me; it was a 
question of who had the greater patience. If I 
remained and insisted on his approach, he would 
yield and come to me. Here is his customary 
method : At the very break of day, the weather 
being favorable, he begins to gobble in the tree 
in which he is roosting. The gobbling is pro- 
duced at very irregular intervals, sometimes 
with long, silent spaces between, at others in 
rapid succession. Some turkeys gobble a great 
deal more than others. Some will gobble but 



LEARNING TURKEY LANGUAGE 177 

once or twice before they come down, and gob- 
ble no more that day; others will not gobble 
until they fly down, and then keep it up for 
hours. Some will gobble all day from sunrise 
to sunset. All these various idiosyncrasies the 
knowledge of the hunter must meet. Some will 
come to the yelp or cluck at the first imitation 
of the sound, while others will take hours to make 
up their minds whether to come at all. Take 
it all together, the gobbler has most obstinate 
ways, purposely or not; the wily hunter must 
bring all his faculties to bear if he would outwit 
him. 

If the old turkey begins to gobble on the roost 
at the early dawn and to strut (although all do 
not strut in the trees), he will gobble, watch, and 
wait, hoping he may catch sight of the female — 
located by her responsive yelp or cluck ■ — that 
may be roosting in a tree near him, or one ap- 
proaching on foot or flying toward him through 
the timber. If not so fortunate, he will usually 
fly to the ground, scan the surroundings with his 
keen eye a moment or so, then drop his wings, 
spread his semicircular tail, strut, and gobble. 



178 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

Then he lets his dress slowly down as the spas- 
modic paroxysm subsides, listens, and looks, 
gobbles a time or two, listens again, and struts, 
and so on. If he sees no hen or hears no sound 
resembling that which he desires, he begins to 
calmly walk toward his feeding grounds, gobbling 
at long intervals; he then usually stops for the 
day. This applies to the first weeks of the gob- 
bling season, and he is quite easily called then, 
as it is too early for the hen to crave his atten- 
tions; but later it all changes. 

The hens seek his presence as the procreative 
impulses begin to stir them. The gobbler then 
will take up a chosen territory in a certain piece of 
woods, the most favorable to required conditions, 
and roost in the vicinity nearly every night, 
that is, in case he has secured a fair harem of 
six or eight hens ; but if he is not so fortunate he 
will run all about the country, having no special 
place to spend the night. But now we are 
contemplating the gobbler who has been so fortu- 
nate as to secure a fair-sized harem, and has con- 
fined himself to one locality, in which he will 
peaceably and contentedly remain all the gob- 



LEARNING TURKEY LANGUAGE 179 

bling season. I have heard them gobble late 
in June when they have one or two hens with 
them, who evidently have had their nests and 
eggs destroyed and are again associating with 
the males. It is usual for the hen to visit the 
gobbler every morning, staying in his company 
only for a short time; and when she departs he 
follows her slowly a few steps, then begins to 
strut and gobble violently until she is out of 
sight. He knows his complement of hens, and 
does not cease to strut and gobble until all hens 
come to him ; he then quits gobbling and strutting 
and steals away to feed on tender leaves, buds, and 
grasshoppers. At such times the hunter, by pip- 
ing seductive quavers, may tickle his vanity and 
stir anew his passion, when he will stop in his 
hunt for food and commence to gobble, strut, and 
gyrate enough to exhaust your patience, but if 
you call properly and are cool and quiet he will 
come. 

The turkey's gobble is easily heard at a dis- 
tance of from one to two miles if the air is still 
and clear. 

These are the rules that apply to turkeys in 



180 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

general, but there are exceptions; for instance, 
some old gobblers never secure the favor of even 
one hen during the whole season, but will run 
and prowl the country over, seeking such stray 
females as may be met with, even visiting the 
grangers' domestic flocks, which is not an unfre- 
quent circumstance in settled neighborhoods. 
These solitary old birds when met with are easy 
prey to the expert caller. 



CHAPER XII 

ON CALLERS AND CALLING 

THERE are in use by all hunters who 
still-hunt the turkey, instruments used 
for imitating the call-notes of this bird ; 
a few lines on these useful implements will not 
be amiss here. 

The box or trough call, the splinter and slate, 
the leaf call, all have their merits, and can be 
made to imitate the different notes of the hens 
and young gobblers. The leaf call is simply a 
tender leaf from particular trees, held between 
the lips, and when well executed, the call with it 
is good. The box call is said to make excellent 
imitation of the hen call, but I have yet to see 
one that satisfied me. The box call is made by 
taking a piece of wood, preferably poplar, or some 
other soft wood, about four inches long, two 
inches deep, by one and a quarter thick. Mor- 
tise a square hole in this block, leaving the ends 

181 



182 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

one half inch thick, one side one eighth, the other 
quite thin. The mortise is one and a half inches 
deep. A piece of slate some four inches long by 
half an inch wide is drawn across the thin edge of 
this box in various positions, and one skilled in the 
use of this call can obtain very good results. The 
call most in use by the backwoods turkey hunters 
in the Southern States, and one that causes the 
death of more turkeys than all other call devices 
put together, is simply the hollow wing bone from 
the second joint of a hen turkey, with both ends 
cut off to allow free passage of air. One end is held 
with the lips in such a manner that the inside por- 
tion of the lips covers the end of the bone. The 
breath is then drawn in sharply, and when one 
is skilled in its use the different call-notes of the 
hen turkey can be produced perfectly. There are 
several other devices much after this order, but 
I have never found use for any of them; in fact 
their defects prompted me to invent a call of 
my own, which I prefer. First, get the smaller 
bone from the wing of a wild hen turkey: the 
radius of the forearm. Hallock says the larger 
bone, but he is wrong. The bone should be thor- 



ON CALLERS AND CALLING 183 

oughly cleansed of all its marrow. After cutting 
off nearly one half inch from each end of the bone, 
the ends are made quite smooth with a file, all 
rough surface removed, and the bone finished 
with fine sandpaper or emery. The round end 
of this bone is packed and glued into the end of a 
piece of reed cane joint two inches long and 
three-eighths in diameter. Then a nice nickel- 
plated ferrule or thimble is fitted on the cane to 
prevent splitting, and the sloping end is wrapped 



NICKU. 

Jordan's turkey call 



with silk. Next, get another joint of cane that 
the first piece will just fit into and glue them 
tightly together; then cut off until the right tone 
is produced. The flat end of the bone is used as 
the mouth-piece. The end of the bone that is in- 
serted in the cane is wrapped with tissue paper 
wet with glue and pushed firmly into the cane 
three quarters of an inch, and care must be taken 
to make this call air-tight at the joints; when the 
glue dries, it will be strong, air-tight, and durable. 



184 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

The bands or ferrules are intended to make the 
instrument doubly strong, as well as to improve 
its looks. It is a tedious job to make a good 
call, but when you have one properly made, it 
will last a great while, and I think this particular 
call is the best in the world. 

There is one objection to the box, slate, or 
similar calls: they make quite a noise near by 
but can not be heard any distance. The instru- 
ment I make can be heard a half or three quarters 
of a mile away. 

This call is used by taking the flat bone end 
between the lips and by measured sucking motion 
the notes are produced. The cluck is produced 
by placing the tip of the tongue on the end of the 
mouth-piece, and giving a sudden jerk and suck. 
This, according to my opinion, is the most nat- 
ural cluck that was ever made by any instru- 
ment, and it can be modulated so as to seduce 
or alarm at the will of the operator. 

It is necessary to practise the use of a caller 
until proficiency is attained, the same as you 
would do in playing a flute or violin. Calling, 
in my opinion, is the most important thing to 



ON CALLERS AND CALLING 185 

be considered when in quest of the turkey, and 
the knowledge of how to do it is difficult to im- 
part to others. 

There are four distinct calls of the wild turkey 
one should become familiar with to become an 
expert turkey hunter; these are the call of the 
young hen, the old hen, the young gobbler, and 
the gobble of the old male bird. The latter is 
almost impossible to learn, and I have seen but 
two or three men in my life who could imitate the 
gobble. The sound is made with the throat, and 
I know of no way it can be taught. The notes of 
the hen turkey consist of a variety of quaver- 
ing sounds such as are given by the domestic 
fowl, but which require study and practice, with 
the best devised caller, to imitate. The plain 
yelp or "keow-keow" are the chief notes to learn, 
and once mastered and employed in concert 
with the cluck, will usually be all that is neces- 
sary in calling turkey, be it a flock of scattered 
individuals or an old gobbler (in the gobbling 
season), but it would avail nothing on the lat- 
ter at any other time. " Keow-keow-keow" or 
"Jceoiv-kee-kee," "cut," "cut" — these are the 



T 



186 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

variety of notes, and each has its meaning, 
however singular that may appear. The 
turkey has no song, and the notes it employs 
are either conversational, call, distress, or alarm 
notes. 

Early morning, when they are dropping down 
from their roost, is the best time to study their 
language as well as their habits. If you go near 
a flock of tame turkeys and begin to yelp and 
cluck, they will reply and keep it up as long as 
you do, so you can soon learn their language. 
If the turkeys be wild ones, keep well out of 
sight, for they will stand no familiarity. I 
am not, however, a stickler about keeping out of 
sight when calling. I prefer to sit in front of a 
tree that is on the side from which the turkey is 
expected to approach, rather than to get behind 
it. I sit in front of the tree in such a manner 
that a turkey with the keenest eye in the world 
will not identify me, if properly fixed, clothed, 
and motionless. The explanation of this is that 
the gobbler is not looking for a person, but for 
another turkey; and as it can think of but one 
thing at a time, it sees nothing that does not 



ON CALLERS AND CALLING 187 

resemble that which it is in quest of; but if you 
move, its keen eye will quickly detect you. 

The turkeys seem to have no special power of 
smell, so if the hunter's clothes are gray or drab, 
he may sit at the base of a tree, and by keeping- 
quiet, the turkey will many times come within 
ten or twenty feet, and, although looking directly 
at him, will fail to make him out and walk lei- 
surely away. 

I once had a flock of wild turkeys come very 
near me, and some of them jumped up and stood 
on the log I was resting my back against; one 
hen was within three feet of me, and she stood 
for a few minutes purring and looking me over, 
finally leaping off. Then a young gobbler came 
in front and took a good look at me. He 
seemed to have a suspicion that I was not a 
stump, for he walked back a little and stopped 
to meditate. Not being satisfied with his first 
investigation, he came up again and took a better 
look; after satisfying himself he walked leisurely 
away. He looked so quizzically at me that I 
could scarcely refrain from laughing. At the 
same time these inquisitive birds were looking 



188 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

Hie over, my rifle was trained on an immense 
gobbler within eighty yards strutting in plain 
view. Upon him my attention was chiefly fas- 
tened, and in a few minutes the old fellow came 
to bag. A dead grass colored suit is not so good 
for a turkey hunting suit as one gray or brown. 

If the game you seek be an old gobbler, and the 
time spring, you will employ the call fully as 
much as when calling the scattered brood in fall 
or winter. I generally use the plain, quaint, 
easy measured yelp or quaver and cluck of the 
female; this same call has a hundred variations, 
but it is not necessary that you employ all of them. 
The simple "cluck-cluck-cluck" and now and 
then plain "keow-keow," when properly done, is 
generally effective. I have called as loud as I 
could, so as to be heard a mile away, while an 
old gobbler was standing near enough for me to 
see the light of his eyes without alarming him. 
Again I have called very low, just as a test, with 
the same result. Sometimes the old bird is un- 
usually cautious; then the less calling the better; 
then, after you have engaged the attention of the 
turkey so that it will stop and gobble and strut, 



ON CALLERS AND CALLING 189 

the less you call him the better, for the reason 
that in gobbling and strutting it is using all its 
own persuasive power to draw you to him, 
thinking you are a hen. Under these conditions 
so long as you continue to call or reply he will 
remain and gobble, and insist on your coming to 
him. But if you have commanded his attention 
and stop calling and wait, he will make up his 
mind to come toyou,ashe has come to the conclu- 
sion that the hen is indifferent to his company 
and is moving away from him; this will excite his 
anxiety and cause him to make haste toward you. 
Under such circumstances, and they occur very 
often, the hunter will very soon note, after he has 
quit calling, the gobbler will gobble oftener, 
more furiously, and strut with greater vigor. 
This is the time when most turkey hunters make 
a fatal mistake, for if you call after the gob- 
bler starts toward you, he will stop a while at 
that point, and go through all the maneuvers 
he has been worrying you with for some time, 
march back and forth to his recent stand and 
give you another hour or two of waiting, or 
perhaps he will go away to return no more. 



190 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

Do not make this mistake, but keep still, wait, 
and watch. Let the gobbler do the gobbling 
and strutting, and you do nothing but keep your 
eye on your rifle sights and watch for his ap- 
pearance. When he suddenly stops gobbling 
and strutting look sharp and keep your gun 
leveled in the direction from which he is ex- 
pected, but by no means have your gun in such a 
position that you will have to move it after the 
turkey is in sight. Some men have a habit of 
moving their guns about, although they have 
their heads and bodies hidden and quiet. They 
might as well get up and say "hello." 

If a gobbler stops, and gobbles and struts in 
one place some time, while you are calling him, 
this is good evidence that he will come to you, 
if you have but patience and keep quiet; nine 
hunters out of ten, however, take the opposite 
view of it, and for the lack of good understanding 
of the turkey, and of patience, get up and go 
home at the very time when success would have 
crowned their efforts. Now, if a hen has gone to 
the gobbler, as will often occur, and they are out 
of your sight in the brush, you will know this to 



ON CALLERS AND CALLING 191 

be the case by the long interval between gobbles; 
if it be fifteen to twenty minutes, you may be 
certain a hen is with him. 

You cannot always be sure that a cessation of 
gobbling is for the purpose of attending the hen 
or of coming to you, but you will soon find out if 
you wait, as the turkey is sure to strut and 
gobble near the place after the caress is over; 
this has been my experience hundreds of times; 
in fact it is characteristic and habitual, and it 
rarely happens otherwise. Here is an instance: 
Two young men accompanied me once to a creek 
near the margin of a large prairie in Texas to see 
me call an old gobbler. At the dawn of day the 
gobbler broke forth into a lively gobbling, when 
we proceeded to an old fallen pine log to call 
him. Having waited for him to fly down from 
his roost, I began the regulation series of calls, 
clucks, etc. The turkey was a great gobbler 
and did his share of it, but he would not come 
immediately to the call. After a while one of 
the boys remarked that he heard a hen yelping 
near the gobbler, and then all gobbling ceased, 
and the boys remarked he had gone off with the 



192 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

hen. I said, "No, he is there yet." This si- 
lence lasted fifteen or twenty minutes, while the 
mosquitoes were covering the faces of the boys; 
but they were bent on seeing the play out and 
would squirm and rub off the pests, then listen 
and look, as they lay prone on the pine straw 
and peered over the log. Once in a while I 
would yelp, but no response came until the 
gobbler's attention to the hen had ceased; he 
then began to gobble again as vigorously as 
though nothing had occured. Then I began 
calling again, but he would not come to me, and 
soon another hen came flying and lighted in a 
tree near him, and a moment or two after flew 
down to him. This caused another long wait. 
When through with the second hen there was 
another long strutting and then another hen 
paid him a visit. By this time the boys had be- 
come impatient, and were anxious to go home; 
the mosquitoes were biting them severely and 
their stomachs were craving nourishment; so 
was mine, but I knew what I was about, and in a 
low whisper remarked: "Boys, if you can en- 
dure it no longer we will go home, but it is hard 



ON CALLERS AND CALLING 193 

to have come this far before daylight, six miles, 
and have such a fine gobbler within our grasp, 
then give it up and go home without him." 

"Oh, well," both said in a whisper, "if you 
think you will get him, we will stay all day." 

"That is all I ask," I replied. "On these 
terms he goes home with us." 

By this time the gobbler had finished his 
attention to the third hen and was gobbling 
furiously in the same spot. I began to call again 
and the gobbler responded lustily. Having 
given him a few well-meant calls, I put the caller 
in my pocket. Seeing this move, one of the 
boys asked me if I was going to give up. " No," 
I replied, " it is his turn to parley and he will come 
now if no other hen comes to him, so you fellows 
keep still as death, but keep a careful watch. 

Very soon, after a series of rapid and excited 
gobbling, all was still. My rifle got into posi- 
tion, and I whispered to the boys to peer over 
the log, but to keep their heads still, as the gob- 
bler was coming and would soon be in sight. 
The woods had been burned and the low scrub 
in our region was black and charred, save small 



194 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

spots that had escaped the fire. I soon saw the 
white top of the old gobbler's head stealing 
slowly through the dead brush a hundred yards 
away, but the boys could not see him until he 
walked upon a small mound some three feet 
in height, that brought his whole form above the 
dead bushes. His feathers were all down, lying 
close to his body, and his long beard hung low; 
a noble bird he was. The most thrilling and 
picturesque object to my eye is the long beard of 
the turkey; just as the big horns of a buck are to 
the deer hunter. In a low whisper I asked the 
boys if they saw him. "Yes, yes," both an- 
swered in a trembling whisper. Then the rifle 
cracked and the bird sprang into the air and fell 
back dead. The two boys, wild with delight, 
sprang to their feet and went crashing through 
the burned underbrush to get hold of the fallen 
turkey. One of the young men, quite a hunter, 
remarked: "That beats all the maneuvering 
with a gobbler I have ever seen and was well 
worth the long ride to witness." So presenting 
him with the big twenty-two pound bird, we 
went home. 



ON CALLERS AND CALLING 195 

As soon as possible select a place to call from. 
To a novice there is no special rule by which one 
can at all times be governed in calling old gobblers. 
Each bird is possessed of some pecularity differ- 
ent from its neighbor, and all individual varia- 
tions the hunter must meet with good judgment. 
When out very early in the morning in the vicin- 
ity of turkeys, get some elevated position, a ridge 
if possible, and, as the dawn is breaking, listen for 
the gobble. The first sounds one is apt to hear 
are the hooting of the owls ; the next, as the light 
grows apace, is the note of the cardinal, found in 
all southern woodlands. As a roseate glow be- 
gins to replace the gray dawn, one will hear the 
" gil-obble-obble-obble." It may be within one 
hundred yards of you or perhaps a mile away. 
You should wait until the turkey gobbles again 
to be certain of his direction, then make all haste 
to him, and get as near as you wish before he 
flies down from his roost. When within one 
hundred and fifty yards of the gobbler, stop, 
and be careful lest he sees you, as his ever watch- 
ful eyes look everywhere, especially at things on 
the ground. 



196 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

As soon as possible select a place to call from. 
To a novice an old treetop or log is best, but to 
rne the front of a tree is preferable, with an open 
space in front that the gobbler may come into 
to be shot. But whatever the place selected, 
get into position as soon as possible, and let it 
always be an attitude that will not cramp you 
should you have to remain a long time, and where 
you can have easy action for your arms and gun. 
That is why I prefer the side of a tree next to 
the game. 

If the gobbler is still gobbling after you have 
seated yourself, sit quietly until he flies down; 
that is best. But if you cluck or yelp to him 
in the tree, let it be but once or twice to attract 
attention and no more; no matter how much he 
gobbles, you must keep still until he leaves his 
roost, and even then wait a few moments for him 
to gobble or strut, which he is sure to do on reach- 
ing the ground, after taking a look around. 
After this you can give him a cluck or yelp, or 
several of them, no matter how many, provided 
they are well delivered. If you are not yet an 
expert at calling, best make as few calls as pos- 



ON CALLERS AND CALLING 197 

sible; for he will surely reply by either gobbling 
or strutting, or both. Do not be in a hurry, for 
generally he is in no hurry, but has all day to 
worry you, and will surely do it if you continue 
calling after you have said enough. If you de- 
sire to get your shot at the gobbler as early as 
possible, call as little as you can after you have 
got him interested. If you continue to yelp 
every time he gobbles, he will stop in one place 
and gobble anywhere from two to six hours, ex- 
hausting all your patience and temper. 

In selecting a place to call from, there is one 
caution that should never be forgotten: never 
get behind a tree so that you will have to look 
from one side to point the gun ; the turkey is sure 
to see you and run away before you can shoot. 



CHAPTER XIII 

CALLING UP THE LOVELORN GOBBLER 

THERE is a wide difference between the 
old gobbler and the young gobbler, and 
the tactics to be employed in hunting 
them are quite different. At two years old 
he can be distinguished by his beard, which is 
then about five inches in length, the tip hav- 
ing a burned appearance; his spurs are about 
five eighths of an inch long, are not pointed, 
while the average weight of the bird is about six- 
teen to eighteen pounds. At three years this 
burned appearance disappears and the beard is 
seven or eight inches long, straight, black, and 
glossy, the spurs being an inch or more and 
pointed. The bird may now be considered full 
grown, and weighs from nineteen to twenty-two 
pounds. Henceforth there is no way I know of to 
tell his age. He continues to grow for several 

198 



THE LOVELORN GOBBLER 199 

years, taking on fat as he gets older, while the 
beard will attain to a length of twelve to thirteen 
inches, when it wears off at the tip on account of 
dragging on the ground while the bird feeds. 
But the beard does not indicate the size of the 
turkey, as some very small gobblers have ex- 
tremely long ones. The largest turkey I ever saw 
had an eight-inch beard and weighed twenty- 
four pounds even though quite lean; he would 
have weighed thirty-one or thirty-three pounds 
if he had been fat, and he may have been twenty 
years old, for he was known to have inhabited 
one locality for more than fifteen years. 

You must first ascertain where the gobblers 
are to be found, and then be on the ground be- 
fore there is the least sign of daybreak to select 
a place where you can sit hidden and in comfort. 
If satisfied that gobblers are in the vicinity, wait 
until dawn approaches, and if then you do not 
hear them, hoot like the barred owl. If there is 
an old gobbler within hearing, nine times out of 
ten he will gobble when the owl hoots ; but if you 
get no response, "owl" again, or give a low 
cluck; the old gobbler may be on his roost within 



200 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

sight of you. If still no response, cluck louder, 
and repeat at intervals, adding a few short, 
spirited yelps; if you fail, move quickly a 
half or quarter mile away and call loudly with 
a cluck and yelp or two. Proceed in this man- 
ner until you have traversed the range of your 
proposed hunt. In this way I have encountered 
several old gobblers in a morning 's tramp, while 
there was not one within hearing of the point 
first selected. 

If turkeys have begun gobbling at dawn, 
you must choose a place to call from. My 
choice is in front of a tree a little larger than 
one's body, facing the turkey. If possible have 
your back to a thicket with open ground in 
front, or you may prefer to get behind a log or 
stump, or in a fallen treetop. Do not make a 
blind, for the obstruction will hide the game 
which is as apt to approach from one direction 
as another; generally the unexpected way. If 
you sit out in an open place by a tree, and stick 
up two or three short bushes in front, he will 
never see you until near enough for you to shoot. 

If the old gobbler is in the tree before you take 



THE LOVELORN GOBBLER 201 

your position, do not approach nearer than one 
hundred to one hundred and fifty yards of him; he 
may possibly see you or he may fly behind you, 
or alight at your side when you call, and run 
away before you can shoot. This may look 
like a small matter to consider, but you will find 
it amounts to much in dealing with old gobblers, 
as I have learned from experience. I have had 
them fly right over my head, so close that I could 
have touched them with my gun barrel, or alight 
at my side and run away in a twinkling. One 
flew so near my brother once as to flip his hat 
brim with its wing. The most remarkable in- 
stance I ever knew occurred to a Mr. Daughty 
in Alabama. He was calling a turkey that was 
gobbling in a tall pine, and finding the call would 
not bring him down, Mr. Daughty took off his 
old brown felt hat and gave it a flop or two over 
his knees. Before he had time to think the gob- 
bler was upon him, and he had to drop his gun and 
ward it off with his hands. He told me the gob- 
bler had stretched out his feet to alight on his 
head and frightened him so he never thought of 
his gun, and was so dazed that the gobbler was 



■J 



202 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

gone before he recovered his wits. I once called 
one down, and as he stretched his legs to alight, 
he saw me, and with a loud "put-put," checked 
his flight and shot up like a rocket. 

A gobbler will invariably alight within fifty to 
seventy-five yards of the roosting tree, according 
to the height they are perched from the ground ; 
therefore one hundred and fifty yards is suffi- 
ciently near if your purpose is to call; but if you 
intend to stalk and shoot him in the tree, you 
will do best if you show no part of your body; 
and especially keep the gun barrel out of sight. 
Many hunters will hide themselves but expose 
their gun, which is a great mistake, as the bird 
will surely see the glint of light on the barrel. 

It is best, in my opinion, not to call while the 
gobblers are in the trees, for the reason that the 
gobbler is expecting the hen to come to him ; and 
it will often happen that as long as you call, so 
long will he remain in the tree and gobble and 
strut. I have had gobblers sit on their roost 
until 9 o'clock and gobble because I kept yelp- 
ing. 

Having got into position, wait until your 



•^ 




'Cluck," "put," "put," there stands a gobbler, within twenty paces to 
the left; he has approached from the rear 



THE LOVELORN GOBBLER 203 

nerves are cool. The turkey hunter must have 
time. Give a low, soothing cluck, then listen 
carefully, as the turkey may gobble the instant 
he hears the cluck; perhaps two may answer, 
but we will confine our attention to one. If a 
two-year-old bird, he will gobble before he thinks; 
b" we will not allow you such an easy job as a 
two-year-old. Suppose the gobbler is three years 
or over — he will straighten up his long neck and 
listen some moments. He is not sure it was a 
genuine cluck, but he thinks it was, and duly 
drops his broad wings, partly spreads his tail, 
and listens; then, " Vut-v-r-r-o-o-o-m-m-i " comes 
the booming strut, and " Gil-obble-obble-obblc," if 
he dares this it is to elicit a call or cluck from you 
to make sure he is not deceived. Now call, 
"Cluck, cluck, keoiv, keoiv, keoiv/' at once he 
answers "Gil-obble-obble-obble" two or three 
times in a breath so loud and shrill that it rings 
out like thunder in the quiet of the forest. Now 
give a low quaver, "Keow, keow, keow," just 
audible to him, yet low, then stop right there. 
He will yell out in a fierce and prolonged rattle 
that will make the squirrels quit their feeding 



204 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

and spring to the trunk of the tree, and arouse 
the herons from the margin of the rivers and 
swamp ponds. Then comes the heavy booming 
strut, and if he gobbles again, be quiet and let 
him talk to his heart 's content. Unless you yelp 
or cluck at this time, he becomes more and more 
nervous and restless, and even dances on the 
limb. Keep quiet; he will now give a few lusty 
gobbles, and then there is a short pause. Look 
out now. There is a rustle in the tree, a flip, 
flip, and you see his big dark form leave the tree 
and sail to the ground, giving his broad wings 
a flop or two to ease up the impetus, and as he 
strikes the earth a cloud of leaves arise in a cir- 
cle to settle around him. The royal bird straight- 
ens up his matchless form, and while his fine 
hazel eyes scan the surroundings, you gaze with 
admiration at his symmetry and beauty. More 
likely than not he has alighted to one side; if so, 
beware! Probably, too, if the woods are not 
very open, you will not see him on the ground 
and must judge as to his movements. 

If there be but one gobbler, wait a few minutes 
after he is down, as he is listening and watching; 



THE LOVELORN GOBBLER 205 

then make a few yelps softly, but "rapidly, and a 
cluck or two. He will gobble and strut vehe- 
mently. Be sure your cluck is a perfect assem- 
bly cluck, or he may take it as an alarm '''put." 
Your cluck, if made at all, should have a reas- 
suring accent, or better not attempt it, depend- 
ing on the yelp or quaver. The cluck and "put" 
are so nearly similar in sound to the ear that 
they are difficult to distinguish; but one is a call 
note and the other is an alarm, hence it were 
better to omit both rather than disturb the con- 
fidence of the bird you are calling. While the 
two notes are impossible to describe in words, 
they can readily be produced by an expert caller 
with a good instrument. Give the gobbler two 
or three quick little yelps, " Keow, keow, kee, 
kee" in a kind of an interrogatory tone; this is 
sure to make him gobble and strut, or probably 
to strut only. I prefer that he strut, although 
the gobble is more exhilarating to one 's ear, but 
does not signify as much. The strut is the 
better sign every time; it shows he has leisure 
and passion. 

Your "Cluck, keow, ku-ku," brings forth at 



206 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

once " Gil-obble-obble-obble. Cluck-v-r r-o-o-o-mi. 
Hush, hear that? " Cut-o-r-r-r" " Cut, cut keow, 
Iceow, keow" What is it? Is some one else 
calling? No; the sound is too perfect. Hark! 
how he gobbles and struts with renewed vigor, 
for it is the siren note of the real hen who has 
gone to him. You might as well now keep quiet 
for fifteen or twenty minutes, for he will not 
answer as long as he is with a hen. As soon as 
she is out of sight, however, he will listen to you. 
Here, reader, is the most important lesson to be 
learned and the most valuable in all turkey lore 
— patience. 

Fifteen minutes is usually ample time with 
the lusty turkey. You keep up the call and 
tease at proper intervals until sufficient zeal is 
restored, which can be determined by the vigor 
of his gobble; then do not call any more, no mat- 
ter what he does. Keep still and watch his 
manoeuvres, and presently he will begin to gobble 
and strut with great stress, gyrate, and swerve 
from side to side, right to left, his big tail, doing 
everything to fetch the new hen whose voice he 
hears; but you must not break the spell by any 




Suddenly there was a "Gil-obble-obble-obble," so near it made me 
jump, and there within twenty paces of me was the gobbler 



THE LOVELORN GOBBLER 207 

false move. All at once he stops and everything 
is still again. Maybe another hen has come 
to his court, maybe not. But do not yelp or 
cluck; he may be coming to you, for he knows 
precisely where you are, and if he is not caress- 
ing another hen he is surely approaching you. 
This may take fully an hour, sometimes six. 

"Cluck, put, put, " there stands a young gob- 
bler within twenty paces to the left: he has ap- 
proached from the rear. Make no motion. He 
has not identified you. "Put, put" Keep still. 
"Put, o-r-r-r-r." He begins to step high, turn- 
ing to one side, then to the other. " C-r-r-r-r." 
He pulls out the tip of one wing and places it 
on the other. Note that. He is going to walk 
away. "Put, c-r-r-r-r." He is gone; but let 
him go, and good riddance, for he has created a 
distrust in the old gobbler's mind that will take 
some time to remove. You are now compelled 
to change your place and call again. "Gil- 
obble-obble-obble." Gracious! he is off to the 
right and fifty yards nearer. If there is suffi- 
cient cover, make a detour of from one hundred 
and fifty to two hundred yards and get ahead 



208 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

of him; then sit down, give a yelp or two, and 
end with a cluck. That will reassure him at 
once, and he will most surely gobble in reply ; if 
so, you sit still. Have your rifle in readiness so 
that no move be made when he comes into view. 
Very likely you have waited some time since he 
gobbled last, and apparently he has quit all 
strutting. There is another ominous pause, but 
you are ready for him and on the sharp lookout. 
You are sorely vexed, but your good judgment 
keeps you alert while the other hunters have 
long since gone home. 

" Gil-obble-obble-obble." Sh-e-e-e-e. There 
he is within thirty paces to the right at a half 
strut. What a bird ! See his noble bearing, the 
bronzed coat, the glint in the keen eye. You 
can 't move now, for he sees you, but he has not 
made you out. Be still and let him pass behind 
that big oak, then turn quickly before he comes 
into view again. Ah! that low green bush has 
obscured him; he has passed out of sight and 
does not reappear. Your nerves begin to run 
like the wheels of a clock with the balance off. 
Your disappointment is inconsolable. "Gil- 



THE LOVELORN GOBBLER 209 

obble-obble-obble" nearly one hundred yards on 
his way. This is discouraging, but the educated 
turkey hunter never gives up so long as a gob- 
bler will argue with him. 

Get up at once and make a rapid detour, tak- 
ing in two hundred yards ; get ahead of him again 
and on his line of march. Then sit down and 
call as soon as possible to attract his attention. 
This done your chances are as good as ever. 
" ' Gil-obble-obble-obble" You have estimated 
well. The gobbler is one hundred yards back 
yet, which gives you a breathing spell. He be- 
gins to rehearse the old role of gobbling and 
strutting, but with greater force, as he has had a 
long rest. Now give another call and cluck to 
see where he is ; no response, and you are becom- 
ing as restless as a raccoon robbing a yellow- 
jacket 's nest, and crazy for just one more call; 
but I advise not; have patience, and wait. An- 
other call would only cause delay if not other 
harm. He is the one now to get nervous, for 
that hen may escape. A crow gives a sudden 
caw in a neighboring tree, and, " Gil-obble-obble 
obble" says the turkey, now only seventy-five 



210 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS'HUNTING 

yards away. But you are silent. Again comes a 
long pause, and you think he has detected you 
and gone. A red tail hawk darts screaming 
through the timber, and, " Gil-obble-obble-obble 
cluck v-r-r-r-o-o-m-i" goes your bird thirty yards 
nearer; then all is silent again. He has made a 
strenuous effort to draw your call, but you are 
deaf. Another long pause and you are in a 
tremor all over. He has quit making any noise, 
and the stillness is painful for, save a solitary red 
bird trilling his carol in yon elm, and a gray squir- 
rel nibbling the buds on that slender maple, all is 
still. Two chameleons are racing on the log 
behind which you are crouching, and, springing 
suddenly to the dry leaves, they startle you with 
the clattering they make, so highly strung are 
your nerves ; but you dare not move. 

Why this insufferable silence? The gobbler is 
coming, but when will he appear? Your rifle 
is in position, cocked, your eye running along 
the glistening barrel, but that is all of you which 
is allowed to move. A distant dead tree falls 
with a heavy thud that shakes the earth. "Gil- 
obble-obble-obble ," breaks upon your ear and sends 



THE LOVELORN GOBBLER 211 

a thrill through your nerves, and the timid squir- 
rel wiggling and scampering to his hole in a hol- 
low gum. The sound comes from the oblique left. 
Your eyes turn slowly that way. Ah! there 
he stands, half erect, half concealed in the brush. 
You see the white top of his head, the crimson 
wattles of his arched neck, the long beard and 
the glint of his eye, for he is only forty paces 
away; but do not fire, as the least twig may de- 
flect the ball. He has not made you out, al- 
though in plain view, nor will he, unless you 
make a sudden move. 

You have carefully brought the rifle to bear on 
him. He is meditative and somewhat listless; 
but note that tail going up : he is going to strut, 
and that will bring him into an open space. 
"Cluck v-r-r-r-o-o-o-m-i." There! he is broad- 
side on. See that crease that runs along his neck 
ending near the butt of the wing? Drop your 
bead on the butt of the wing opposite where that 
crease ends. That will kill him every time, as 
behind lies his heart; while if you aim for the 
centre of the body the bullet will go through the 
viscera, making a mess of it, and while a fatal 



212 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

wound, he may get away and be lost to you, for 
it will not always knock him down. If he stands 
quartering, aim at the centre of the breast next 
to you. It will at once be fatal. If the back is 
presented, which is not once in a hundred times, 
draw upon the centre of it. Unless turkeys are 
very plentiful, and you care little about losing a 
good chance, don 't shoot at his head with a rifle. 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE INDIFFERENT YOUNG GOBBLER 

OF ALL stages, conditions, and pecul- 
iarities of these fowls, the young 
gobbler is the most difficult to under- 
stand. He is absolutely unique, hence you 
must employ entirely different tactics when 
you go in quest of him. He has little educa- 
tion, but he possesses a great native shrewdness, 
and I have sometimes thought him more difficult 
to get than either the old gobbler or hen; this 
may be a fool's luck, or it may be the result of 
stupidity or reticence, but I have killed ten old 
gobblers to one young one. As I have before 
stated, while the young males are with their 
mothers and sisters in the flock there is little 
difficulty in bringing them to the call after the 
flock is scattered. But after the separation of 
the sexes they are extremely hard to call, for the 
reason that they have abandoned the society of 

218 



214 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

the females altogether, and do not pay any atten- 
tion to their voices. Lack of information and a 
reckless carelessness have caused the loss of 
many young gobblers that otherwise might have 
been secured. After the young males have been 
separated some time from the females, and are 
banded together, they are hard to find and hard 
to bag when found. Instead of flushing at once 
into the tree at the approach of an enemy, they 
usually take to their legs and run some distance 
before stopping, making their pursuit difficult 
and unreliable. If once flushed and scattered, 
and the hunter understands how to call them, he 
can usually get one or two out of the flock if he 
is familiar with their peculiar ways. Thus after 
December we have three distinct classes of tur- 
key society, the old gobblers, the young gobblers, 
and the hens; and no matter what the number of 
them is, they persistently maintain this separa- 
tion the rest of the winter. 

The soft, gentle quaver of the hen has no effect 
on the ear of the young gobbler at this season, 
and he will hearken to no other note or call than 
that of the young gobbler. Even were a flock 



THE INDIFFERENT YOUNG GOBBLER 215 

of hens to pass beneath the tree on which he is 
perched, he would regard thern with no more 
interest than he would a flock of crows; hence 
neither the hen nor her yelp would be a decoy to 
him, but the call of another young gobbler will 
enlist his attention. The call of the young gob- 
bler, like that of the average boy as he is develop- 
ing into manhood, is changeable and erratic; at 
times it is ridiculous from its awkwardness, and 
hard to imitate or even to identify. It consists of 
an irregular hoarse and discordant croak and a 
coarse muffled cluck that sounds like an acorn 
falling into a pool of water, or the gentle tap of a 
stick on a log. If this yelp or cluck is properly 
and timely made, it will bring the young gobbler 
to the hunter, but usually he is in no haste to 
come even then. They have ample time to spare 
for all their movements, and it requires the great- 
est patience and dogged determination of which 
a sportsman is capable to sit and wait their pleas- 
ure; but if the hunter has a band of young gob- 
blers well scattered, if he has a good caller and is 
expert in its use, and will make up his mind to 
sit quiet and talk turkey, he will usually be re- 



216 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

warded. He should use only one or two low, 
coarse clucks, well measured and some time apart ; 
then the low, muffled "Croc, croc'' The young 
gobbler may be sitting on the limb of a tall 
cypress, hidden from view by a festoon of Span- 
ish moss; or, if in a pine, hidden by the limbs, as 
still as a part of the tree. " Croc, croc" and one 
low, hoarse cluck, as if a nut had struck the bark 
of a dead log in falling, are the only sounds you 
dare to make. He is not so reckless in regard to 
the call or answers as the hens, and not so ner- 
vous. While he sits and contemplates, he meas- 
ures notes; so that you have to be careful if 
you would fool him. Now call, "Croc, croc." 
His fears begin to dissipate, and running his 
beak through his feathers, he makes his toilet. 
This over, he slowly raises his long neck and head 
and replies, " Croc, croc." " Cong, cong, croc, croc, 
cluck" He turns his head with one side earth- 
ward, and gives himself a convulsive shake — 
"Croc, croc." He lifts up one foot and then slowly 
puts it down; lifts one wing, placing its tip on 
top of the other, then slips that one out and laps 
it on the first. " Croc, croc, kee, kee." He looks 



<r 



THE INDIFFERENT YOUNG GOBBLER 217 

around again to be reassured. Now there is a 
rustle in the top of the tree, and you see the 
leaves move, for he has turned on the limb and 
you may see a portion of his body. You dare 
not shoot or risk a bullet through that brush. 
Wait. "Croc, croc"; he walks along the limb a 
few feet, but you still get only glimpses. "Croc, 
croc," and down he sails to the earth. A cloud 
of dry leaves arises around him and settles again 
as he closes his broad wings and straightens up. 
Now is your chance; bag him. 

When the young gobbler once makes up his 
mind to go to your call, there is little or no stop- 
ping on his part. He walks boldy along, as if he 
had no fear of anything. But be careful; he will 
see you surely if you make an unnecessary mo- 
tion, and there is no compromising a mistake 
with him. His adieu is final. He is a bird of the 
fewest words at any time, and stands upon the 
idea that absolute silence is safety. His habits 
are exclusive and retiring, seldom showing him- 
self in openings, although at times he is fond of 
open pastures or prairies where he can see all 
around him. 



CHAPTER XV 

HUNTING TURKEY WITH A DOG 

1D0 NOT believe there is any safer way of 
bringing a turkey to bag than by the judi- 
cious employment of a good turkey dog, and 
by that I mean a dog trained especially to hunt 
turkeys. The hunter, too, who employs a dog 
must know and act his part well to be successful. 
Of all times to hunt the wild turkey with a 
dog, the autumn and winter months are the best. 
The dog should be a natural bird dog, either 
pointer or setter. My choice, next to the point- 
ers or setters, are the terriers, either Scotch or 
fox. The Scotch terrier makes an excellent 
turkey dog, due to its intelligence, patience, cour- 
age, and snap. 

I have had dogs lie by my side when turkeys 
were gobbling and strutting within a few feet, 
and never move a muscle until the gun was fired, 
when they would be upon the bird instantly. 

218 



HUNTING TURKEY WITH A DOG 219 

If you employ a dog in gobbling time, he must 
be thoroughly educated to distinctly know his 
part, which is to keep at heel or lie at your side 
and watch without a sound until the bird is called 
to gun and shot; then the dog is allowed to go 
and seize the quarry if it is not killed by the shot 
and making off with a broken wing. 

In Alabama I once saw a large gobbler coming 
slowly to my call over a pine hill about ninety 
yards away. I fired at him with my rifle as he 
was moving in a full strut. At the shot, my 
gobbler tumbled over, but quickly got up and 
made off at a lively run with one wing hanging. 
I started after him, at the same time calling to 
my brother (who was below me on a creek, call- 
ing another turkey) to let go his dog. In a 
moment I saw a gray streak shoot out from the 
thicket on the creek, and start up the hill 
in pursuit of the running gobbler. It was my 
brother's Scotch terrier, and within one hun- 
dred and fifty yards the dog overhauled the 
gobbler, to my great satisfaction, and held 
him until I arrived. Had I not had the services 
of a dog at this time the turkey would have 



220 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

escaped, as he could get up the high, rocky slope 
faster than I. 

It is best to take a young dog six or eight 
months old. The training is easy enough, pro- 
vided the preceptor knows his part. Like edu- 
cating a dog for quail, he must get the rudiments 
before he ever sees the live game, for once a 
lesson is spoiled a dog is also spoiled. Give him 
a few lessons before taking him into the woods to 
hunt turkeys. He must know the turkey is his 
quest ere he is let loose; and do not loose him until 
you have found unmistakably fresh signs; for one 
mistake at such a time will take months to repair. 

Teach him to lie down, the same as in quail les- 
sons, no matter if he is a pointer, terrier, or hound. 
Having taught him to lie down, take him walking 
where there are trees, logs, and fences, and every 
now and then suddenly sit or squat down by some 
tree or fence, calling him quickly to you by soft 
words and motion of the hand. Make him lie 
down close to your hip, better the left side if 
you are right handed, so that by any unexpected 
move he may not destroy your aim at a critical 
moment. Teach him to lie on his belly or with 



HUNTING TURKEY WITH A DOG 221 

his head prone between his forepaws. This 
is easily done, and will insure a motionless atti- 
tude as a turkey is approaching. If he whines 
under excitement, as some will, tap him lightly 
with a small switch on the head; this will also 
make him put his head down, and he will soon 
understand the meaning of it. 

Next get a dead wild turkey, hen if possible, 
as it is lighter. Take the dog into the yard or 
field where there are no dogs or children to 
bother him. Let him play with the turkey a 
little, while you encourage him , then have some 
one drag the turkey from him by the head a 
short distance, while you hold and encourage the 
dog to go. Let the turkey be hung up in a tree 
or bush out of his reach ; then let him go and take 
the trail and tree the bird, and encourage him to 
bark and jump against the tree. Then have it 
fixed so that after he has jumped and barked a 
while you can fire a gun or pistol and the carcass 
falls to the ground and he pounces upon it. Re- 
peat this as often as you have an opportunity. 
You may keep a wing cut off at the second joint, 
using that for several lessons before it becomes 



222 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

tainted, but by no means allow him to tear the 
wing or bite the flesh of the turkey. You might 
set him after a tame turkey now and then, but 
this might bring him some day to grief by a load 
of shot from your good neighbor. 

Take the dog with you on a few hunts in the 
woods for turkeys. If you find a flock, put him 
after them at once and let him flush them, which 
he will hardly fail to do. Then, if you can kill 
one over him, your turkey dog is well-nigh made. 
Having had your turkeys flushed, you can walk 
slowly and cautiously in the direction they flew, 
looking into every tree, and you will soon see one 
or two of them perched upon a limb. To get 
your bird now is easy if you have a good rifle; 
and you had better not be out if you haven't 
one, as no kind of shooting requires better marks- 
manship than turkey shooting, especially in the 
timber. Having treed your turkey, you may get 
several shots, and meantime the dog is allowed 
to trot around and bark as he sees fit, as the more 
noise he makes the more is the attention of the 
birds diverted from you to him; but after you 
have looked among the trees in a few hundred 



HUNTING TURKEY WITH A DOG 223 

yards of the flush, if you have not secured your 
bird, select a good place to call. Sit down with 
your back against a tree, or behind a log or fallen 
tree if that suits you better. Sit quite flat and 
low, bringing the knees nearly up to the eyes. 
Call the dog to you at once by a whisper and wave 
of the hand, and make him lie snugly at your 
side, looking in the direction you look. 

After a few minutes, when everything is still, 
you begin to call at short intervals. Now and 
then a low yelp, at first, and if you get a reply, 
cease calling until the results begin to show up, 
either by one or more turkeys coming to your 
call, or in their collecting together in another di- 
rection, which is more likely to be the case, from 
the fact that the mother hen is doing more effec- 
tive calling than you, or they are inclined to go 
that way anyhow. In such a case you must get 
up at once and proceed in the direction you see 
them flying. Go quickly to where they are col- 
lecting. Put the dog after them again and into 
the trees they will go; you then proceed as at 
first and continue these tactics until you have 
got what you want,, or have lost them entirely. 



-r 



224 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

This is excellent and exciting sport, and the 
dog loves it and soon becomes an expert in the 
chase. But of all methods of hunting the tur- 
key it is the most disastrous, next to baiting, not 
so much in the number of birds killed, but the tur- 
key has a great dread of a dog, and if too fre- 
quently chased by one it will drive the birds 
out of the locality. It should seldom be prac- 
tised in the same locality or upon the same flock 
of turkeys more than once in a season. 

The rifle is preeminently the gun to employ in 
this method of hunting, and there is a great sat- 
isfaction in taking a fine bird from its lofty perch 
in a tall pine, gum, or cypress at one hundred to 
one hundred and fifty yards, where it would be 
safe from any shotgun. 

Dogs trained to hunt turkeys must not be al- 
lowed to run squirrels, hares, deer, or any wood- 
land game. It makes no difference as to quail or 
prairie game, but in the timber his work belongs 
to the turkey alone. 

In teaching the young dog to grasp a turkey, 
it should be trained to seize the bird by the neck 
every time, and not touch the body, as his teeth 



HUNTING TURKEY WITH A DOG 225 

will lacerate the tender skin and tear the flesh — 
a thing no true sportsman would tolerate. It is 
easy to teach the dog not to mouth the game by 
making him take the neck in his mouth every 
time an opportunity is afforded. If he takes hold 
of the body, or mouths the feathers, make him let 
go and take the neck. He will soon learn this. 

The common fox hound also makes a good tur- 
key dog, and takes naturally to it, but he is too 
noisy. A turkey dog must not yelp or bark on 
the track before he sees the birds as the hound 
does. Turkeys are alarmed easily and prefer to 
run instead of to fly, and if the dog barks on the 
trail they will run for miles, all the time probably 
not one hundred yards in advance of the dog. 
So the dog for turkeys must keep silent until in 
sight of them, and then bark savagely until they 
are all flushed. This the pointer, setter, or ter- 
rier will do. Be sure to encourage your dog to 
bark at the turkeys in the trees. 

Audubon says: "In the spring when the 
males are much emaciated by their attention 
to the hens, it sometimes happens that, in plain, 
open ground they may be overtaken by a swift 



226 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

dog, in which case they squat and allow them- 
selves to be seized, either by the dog or the hun- 
ter, who has followed on a good horse." I have 
heard of such occurrences, but I never saw an in- 
stance of the kind. Good dogs scent the tur- 
keys when in large flocks at a great distance; I 
may venture to say half a mile away, if the wind 
is right. Should the dog be well trained to the 
sport, he will set off at full speed on getting the 
scent and in silence until he sees the birds, when he 
instantly barks, and, running among them, forces 
the whole flock to take to the trees in different 
directions. This is of great advantage to the 
hunter, for, should all the turkeys go one wa}^ 
they would soon leave the perches and run again ; 
but when they are separated by the dog, a per- 
son accustomed to the sport finds the birds easily 
and shoots them at pleasure. 

No turkey is going to run very long ahead of a 
dog, if the dog is in sight and chasing him. A 
pack of mouthy beagles, or an old, slow deer- 
hound, giving mouth continually, might keep a 
turkey in a trot until fatigued; it is possible then 
that a quick, swift dog like the Scotch terrier or 



HUNTING TURKEY WITH A DOG 227 

the pointer might rush on and catch him. But 
the first impulse of the turkey, on the near ap- 
proach of an enemy, is to fly and not to depend 
on its legs; though on seeing an enemy at some 
distance, turkeys will run away and not fly at all. 
In the open prairie it is quite another matter. 
On seeing a turkey or flock of them on a wide 
prairie, one can, by riding in a circuitous direc- 
tion, as if passing in ignorance of them, get near 
and start them into a trot, and keep them trot- 
ting by keeping between them and the nearest 
timber. In this way, although you ride slowly, 
you will soon run them down. The first indica- 
tion of exhaustion to be noted will be the drop- 
ping of their wings, and when the hunter sees 
that, he knows that they cannot rise to fly; he 
then closes in and easily rides the birds down. 
This is, or used to be, a favorite sport with the 
cowboys of Texas, in which they sometimes em- 
ployed a lariat, catching the birds as they would 
a calf, or shooting them with a revolver. In case 
neither the revolver nor lariat is handy, they take 
a bullet, partly split with a knife, and then let 
the tip of their cow whiplash into the cleft of 



228 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

the bullet; clamping the lead tightly on the lash. 
Thus armed, they pursue the turkeys until they 
drop their wings, when, dashing among them, 
they strike the neck of the turkey with the lash, 
a foot from the end of the tip, which sends the bul- 
let whizzing around the neck four to six times; 
and ere the turkey can recover, the cowboy dis- 
mounts and secures it, 

If there is snow on the ground there is little 
trouble in following the turkeys by their tracks. 
I have done but little of such hunting, as sufficient 
snow seldom falls in the South to make good 
tracking. When you hunt turkeys on the snow, 
all there is to do is to find their tracks and follow 
them carefully until the birds are seen; then ob- 
serve the same tactics as in stalking them on the 
bare earth. 

In the South they are unprepared for much 
cold, and at such times will likely be found 
grouped together on the sunny slopes of hills, 
or behind some log or fence, to avoid the bitter 
winds, especially if the sun is not shining. They 
will then often remain on their roosts half a day 
rather than alight on the cold snow. 



HUNTING TURKEY WITH A DOG 229 

If you attempt to stalk an old gobbler when he 
is gobbling it is quite easy if you learn the course 
he is taking and get ahead of hirn and simply 
wait. Some men hunt no other way and are suc- 
cessful; but it requires the greatest care, and a 
thorough knowledge of the woods you are in, so 
that you may take advantage of ridges, ravines, 
gulches, thickets, etc. 

When you have discovered a flock of turkeys 
at some distance from you, stop and wait a few 
moments. If they are feeding, and you are un- 
observed by them, carefully note in what direc- 
tion they are moving. It is hard to tell if they 
are going or coming two hundred yards away, but 
there is one way by which their movements can 
readily be determined and that is by their color. 
If they are approaching, you will notice the black- 
ness of their breasts; or rather the birds will 
appear almost black; and if a majority so appear, 
you may be sure they are coming; in other 
words, if you see one or two of them straighten 
up, and they look quite dark or black, you can 
then be certain of their approach. On the other 
hand, if you notice that they look a lightish gray 



<230 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

or brown color, they are going the other way. 
But do not be deceived, as sometimes a flock has 
stopped to feed, and they will be turning and fac- 
ing in all directions while so engaged; occasion- 
ally one will straighten up, flop his wings, and 
look back. Have an eye to the band and you 
will see if many of them look black or gray. If 
there are gobblers in the bunch, note their breasts 
which are blacker than the hens. 

There is another way to find the direction in 
which the turkeys are moving if you cannot see 
them. When you have found fresh signs in the 
woods, note the scratches carefully to see which 
way most of them incline. This is easily deter- 
mined by the direction in which the leaves are 
thrown by the birds' feet. Sometimes, if the 
scratches are made late in the evening, they will 
look fresh the next morning and thus deceive 
the oldest hunter. I once saw scratches on an 
open pin oak and cane ridge; then others at 
twenty paces, and again at fifty paces still others. 
After a careful examination of the scratches, I 
concluded there must be two old gobblers that 
had made the signs; and, although I knew of 



HUNTING TURKEY WITH A DOG 231 

twenty or thirty hens and some young gobblers 
on that ridge, I had no suspicion before that 
there were any old gobblers. Now, reader, what 
caused me to suspect from these scratchings that 
old gobblers were about, and that there were two 
of them was this: there were but few scratches 
and at long intervals. The scratches were very 
large, almost two feet across, while the leaves 
had been thrown five or six feet back, indicating 
long legs and large feet with a great stroke. I 
noticed there were two separate lines of scratches 
some ten feet apart on the main trend ; also the 
scratches were twenty to fifty yards apart in 
the direction the birds were going, which indi- 
cated that the two birds were walking along at 
a brisk pace and keeping pretty well in a straight 
line, feeding as they went. 

I believe no man alive or dead has killed more 
"old gobblers" than I have, and yet the heaviest 
I . ever bagged weighed twenty-four pounds 
gross. This bird might have reached thirty or 
thirty-three pounds had he been fat, but it was 
late in the gobbling season, when the winter fat 
is run off by constant love affairs, leaving them 



232 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

greatly reduced in weight. This specimen was 
killed in Trinity County, Texas, where I have 
found the turkeys to average heavier than any- 
where else I have hunted. 

Audubon said the wild turkey would soon 
become extinct in the United States, sixty or 
seventy years ago; but to date his prophecy has 
failed in so far as the Southern or Gulf States 
are concerned. Although here as elsewhere 
hunted and persecuted without consideration, 
they are remarkably plentiful still. There are 
localities in the Gulf States that will not be cleared 
up or ultilized for agricultural purposes in ages 
to come — if then. The immense swamps — 
annually overflowed — great hummocks, and the 
broken, untenable pine hills, will afford suitable 
retreats for the turkey for generations to come. 

Wild turkeys are less understood by the aver- 
age sportsman or even naturalist than any other 
of our game birds. It is common to read of the 
acute olfactory powers of the turkey; that he 
scents the hunter at one hundred to three hun- 
dred yards; the truth is it must be a pungent 
odor to have a turkey detect it at ten paces. 



CHAPTER XVI 

THE SECRET OF COOKING THE TURKEY 

OF MATTERS with which the average 
sportsman has to do, there is none so 
little understood as that of cooking 
game, and especially the turkey. Thousands of 
sportsmen go into the hunting camp expecting to 
play the role of cook without the knowledge of 
the simplest requirements and as a consequence 
are in perpetual trouble and disappointment on 
account of the blunders that are the inevitable 
results of lack of information. In the solitude of 
the forest the hunter should not be at loss for 
methods of cooking even if he has but a frying- 
pan; a log for a table; his plate, a section of bark 
or large leaf. 

The turkey is supposed to be a bird of dry 
meat, but this is so only when all juices are 
boiled or baked out of it. The usual manner 
in which turkeys are cooked is by roasting or 

233 



234 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

baking. If the turkey is an old one, the first 
process is to parboil until the flesh is tender; 
then it is stuffed with sundry things, such as 
bread-crumbs, oysters, shrimp, shallots, onions, 
garlic, truffles, red and black pepper, wine and 
celery to destroy the natural flavor of the bird. 
It is a mistake to disguise the rich, delicate flavor 
of turkey meat with the odor of fish, but it is 
done and called roast turkey. 

If the turkey is a young one, cook it in the 
way usual to stove-baking, after first filling its 
cavity with a suitable dressing of bread-crumbs, 
pepper, salt, and onions chopped fine, moistened 
with fresh country butter. This is the best 
dressing that can be made, and will detract 
nothing from the flavor of the bird nor add to 
it. If an old turkey, parboil it until the flesh 
is quite tender, then stuff and bake. 

In the forest camp I neither bake nor roast 
the turkey. Imagine a gobbler dressed and ly- 
ing on a log or piece of bark beside you. Take 
a sharp knife, run the blade down alongside the 
keel bone, removing the flesh from one end of 
that bone to the other. By this process each 



THE SECRET OF COOKING THE TURKEY 235 

half breast can be taken off in two pieces. Lay 
this slab of white meat skin side down, then be- 
gin at the thick end and cut off steaks, trans- 
versely, one half inch thick, until all the slab is 
cut. Now sprinkle with salt and pepper and 
pile the steaks un together; thus the salt will 
quickly penetrate. Do not salt any more than 
you want for one meal; the meat would be 
ruined if allowed to stand over for the next meal 
before cooking. Just as soon as the salt dissolves 
and the juice begins to flow, spread out the steaks 
in a pan, sprinkle dry flour lightly on both sides 
evenly, taking care to do this right, or you will 
get the flour on too thick. Give the pan a shake 
and the flour will adjust itself. This flour at 
once mixes with the juices of the meat, forming 
a crust around the steak, like batter. Have the 
frying-pan on the fire with plenty of grease, and 
sizzling hot so the steak will fry the moment it 
touches the hot grease. Put the steaks in until 
the bottom of the pan is covered, but never have 
one steak lap another. If the grease is quite 
hot the steak will soon brown, and when brown 
on one side, turn, and the moment it is brown 



236 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

on both sides take out of the pan. By this 
method you retain almost every particle of the 
juice of the meat, and at the same time it isbrown 
and crisp, and will nearly melt in the mouth. 
The flour around the steak does not only prevent 
the escape of the juice, but also prevents any 
grease penetrating the meat. If you like gravy, 
have the frying-pan hot and about a teaspoonful 
of the grease in which the meat was fried left in 
it; take a half pint of cold water and pour into the 
pan. Let this boil about five minutes, when you 
will have a rich, brown gravy, which season with 
salt and pepper and pour hot over the steak. 
You don 't want a thing else to eat except some 
good bread and a cup of Creole coffee. Having 
eaten turkey thus cooked you would not care 
for baked or roast turkey again. 

The bony portions of your turkey may be cut 
up at the joints, and all available put into a pot 
or saucepan having a lid, with a few slices of 
pork or bacon for seasoning, or fresh butter. No 
matter how fat any game is a little pork improves 
it. Put in a pod or two of red pepper and add a 
little water; let this boil and simmer until quite 



THE SECRET OF COOKING THE TURKEY 237 

done. I am giving directions now for making a 
stew. For the thickening, take an onion or two 
and cut into small pieces, a pod of red pepper 
broken up, a tablespoonful of flour sifted, and 
some salt. Put all into a pan and pour in a 
cup of cold water, stir until the lumps of the flour 
disappear, then put the mixture into the pot 
with the turkey. Stir occasionally until it boils, 
and if there is not sufficient gravy in the vessel 
where the stew is cooking, add more water. Boil 
thirty minutes, then serve. In this stew you get 
the finest and most wholesome dish imaginable, 
and at very little expense and trouble. 

There are many who can prepare food but 
never understand the reasons for doing things. 
Not one in a hundred knows why meal, flour, or 
cracker-crumbs are put on fish or meat while 
frying. They tell you it helps to brown the 
flesh; it does no such thing, but prevents brown- 
ing while the meat is being cooked. Leave off 
the flour or meal, and by the time the meat is 
cooked it will be dry and hard as pine bark and 
as indigestible. When fish is rolled in flour or 
meal, the fish is not browned, but the covering is. 




CHAPTER XVII 

CAMERA HUNTING FOR TURKEYS 

URING the past ten years, while the sea- 
son was open on wild turkeys, I have 
made a rule to leave the gun at home and 
hunt the turkey with the "camera" instead. 

On countless occasions I have sat on the bank 
of a beautiful creek in Alabama watching and 
waiting for these noble birds to appear and pose. 
Time and patience, that's what it takes; likewise 
to know the ways of the bird. 

On one occasion I had found their great tracks 
on the sandbank, and, noting it as a favorite 
crossing, made an impromptu blind to mask 
the camera lest the birds get the least 
glimpse of it or myself. It took me over two 
months to get an opportunity for the picture 
which I secured at last one afternoon as the sun 
was getting low. I had been calling at inter- 
vals, and just when least expected, there they 

238 



CAMERA HUNTING FOR TURKEYS 239 

were, moving slowly but watchfully toward 
the creek and across the scope of the lens. My 
finger was quick to reach the button as they 
stepped to the sandy bank, and turned to note 
that no enemy lurked behind. The click of the 
shutter startled them but little, and they walked 
quietly away. I knew I had a good negative, 
as the late afternoon sun shone brightly on their 
gorgeous plumage, and they were barely fifteen 
feet from where I sat. 

Not one man in a million has ever had the 
opportunity of viewing one of these birds in life 
in the woods at ten to fifteen feet — nor ever will, 
and to these I hope the photographs will be a 
pleasure; for to see a ten-year-old gobbler so near, 
when he is not frightened — and you with- 
out gun or other means to injure him — so you 
may enjoy the most majestic bird the eye of 
man ever rested on, is not only a feast for the 
eye, but a pleasant memory that will be with 
you forever. 

In November, 1899, in Alabama,I began to hunt 
with the camera, and for six months — with the 
exception of one day only, on which a terrific 



240 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

storm raged — not a day passed that I was not 
after turkey pictures, sometimes not seeing one 
in two or three weeks, then again encountering 
twenty -five to forty in one day. I spoiled several 
hundred plates in this time, snapping at every 
chance that occurred. There is no possibility 
of a time exposure on such sensitive birds, and one 
twenty-fifth of a second is scarcely quick enough. 
Often the click of the shutter, so like the snap of 
a gun when missing fire, sent them whirling into 
the air or scattered them, pellmell, afoot. I have 
stalked and crawled to their scratching places 
and sat concealed with camera masked on an 
old log or in a hollow stump, till sundown; all 
day, and the next and the next. 

I have made three or four exposures in a day, 
gone home, developed the negatives, and found 
nothing on them but shadows — taken in shade; 
but at other times there was the just reward 
when all the plates came out with every image 
"perfect." Then, again, it would rain almost 
daily for a month or two. Still I went, camera 
slung over my shoulder, covered with a rubber 
sheet, hoping for sunshine. 



CAMERA HUNTING FOR TURKEYS 241 

Once I discovered a bearded hen and tried 
five weeks to catch her with the lens, and never 
saw her but twice during that time. The next 
season I found her again in company with three 
other hens. I called them within ten or twelve 
feet. This time it had been sunlight all day, 
but just a minute before they came near enough 
a thin haze covered the sun. Still, I pressed 
the button and got a dim negative of her and 
of one of her playmates, and have not seen her 
since. 

To successfully photograph wild turkeys the 
greatest care must be taken in having a blind 
perfectly natural in appearance. Once in the 
blind, do not move; never mind the wind; wild 
turkeys cannot smell you any farther than you 
can them, but they can outsee anything except 
the heron, crane, and hawk, and you must get 
within fifteen or twenty feet of them in the bright 
sunshine, or no picture. Find their scratching 
places and hide behind a log, or make a blind of 
brush and green leaves, etc. Be sure to hide 
all the camera save the disk of the lens, and they 
will see that nearly every time. I have had 



242 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

them discover the lens and approach within two 
feet and peer at it with curious wonder, whine 
and purr, until satisfied it would not harm them, 
then walk serenely away. 

At times when I saw a flock or an individual 
feeding at a distance, I would take my call and 
invite them to advance, "stand up and look 
pleasant," and if in the humor they would often 
comply. I have a friend living in New Orleans 
with whom a hundred happy hours have been 
spent in the camp, wild woods, and along the 
stream, chiefly in quest of these noble fowls. 
He and I have exchanged letters once a week for 
the past quarter of a century. Of course I re- 
gale him with every new photograph taken of 
turkeys. One day I mailed him several that 
set him afire, and on a certain day friend Renaud 
came to me with his old 10-gauge which has 
served him thousands of times. 

The next morning when day broke we sat on 
the crest of a pine ridge adjacent to the hum- 
mock bordering the "Big-bee" river swamps, 
over which the turkeys roosted at night. Ere 
long the gray of the eastern horizon began to 



CAMERA HUNTING FOR TURKEYS 243 

melt into a rosy hue, and suddenly out of the deep 
swamp came the shrill, gutteral but mighty 
pleasing "Gil-obble — obble, obble" of a tur- 
key, echoing along the slopes and through the 
vales of the surrounding forests. 

After a while we heard him gobble on the 
ridge, so I took my call and began to pipe a few 
words in turkey vernacular, which the old gen- 
tleman seemed to comprehend by the way he 
gave ready reply. By this time the turkeys had 
all flown down, several gobbling in as many 
directions. Several were approaching slowly, 
and we could hear them below the crest of the 
hill. Luck favored us, so far as nothing yet had 
disturbed them, and they gradually came nearer, 
until presently a remark from my companion, 
"Old Gobbler in sight?" "See him coming, 
two of them, yes, three"; and on they came, 
their great black breasts glowing in the bright 
sun, while their long beards swung from side to 
side. 

Suddenly, when within thirty paces of us, one 
of them spied Renaud 's new drab corduroy cap, 
which contrasted vividly with the black and 



244 THE WILD TURKEY AND ITS HUNTING 

charred log behind which we were hid, and "Put," 
"put;" all were gone, helter-skelter. 

Renaud 's heart was broken — mine wrecked. 

"Why in the d-dickens didn't you shoot?" I 
asked, mad as a hornet. 

"I wanted to get them in position to get the 
two largest ones." 

"Gee! you ought to have made sure of that 
fellow with the immense beard, and chance 
another on the rise or run;" but just as we were 
waxing into a fine quarrel, R. remarked in a 
whisper, "They are coming back." 

"Yes," I replied, "and several others with 
them — some old ones and some yearlings ; so 
make no mistake this time, and be sure of one of 
the old ones." 

They were very near now, and as I made a low 
call all stopped and some gobbled; then on they 
came in a careless manner, neither strutting nor 
exhibiting any special passion. 

I quickly got in my camera work, and ducked 
my head in time to see the beautiful things walk- 
ing away from the gun; then two well-measured 
reports — and the smoke clearing away showed 



CAMERA HUNTING FOR TURKEYS 245 

two grand old patriarchs flopping over on the 
pine straw and soon lying still. I am not sure 
which was the proudest — I as particeps criminis 
or he as executioner. 



THE END 




THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS 
GARDEN CITY, N. Y. 



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